
A?/4 



* 



THE CHRISTIAN ECCLESIA 




MACMILLAN AND CO., Limiteb 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lte 

TORONTO 



THE 
CHRISTIAN ECCLESIA 

A COURSE OF LECTURES 

ON THE EARLY HISTORY AND 

EARLY CONCEPTIONS OF 

THE ECCLESIA 

AND ONE SERMON 



BY 

FENTON JOHN ANTHONY HORT D.D. 

lady Margaret's reader in divinity in the 
university of cambridge 



MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 

1914 



He 



COPYRIGHT 

First Edition , 1897. 

Reprinted 1898, 1900, 1908. 

Shilling Theological Library, 19 14. 

^0 



PREFACE. 

THIS book consists in the first place of a course 
of lectures delivered by Dr Hort as Lady 
Margaret Professor in the Michaelmas Terms of 1888 
and 1889 on 'The Early History and the Early 
Conceptions of the Christian Ecclesia'. The plan 
of the lectures is the same as that of the Lectures 
on Judaistic Christianity. 

They contain a careful survey of the evidence to 
be derived from the literature of the Apostolic age for 
the solution of a fundamental problem. 

The title ' Ecclesia ' was chosen, as the opening 
lecture explains, expressly for its freedom from the 
distracting associations which have gathered round its 
more familiar synonyms. It is in itself a sufficient 
indication of the spirit of genuine historical enquiry 
in which the study was undertaken. 

The original scheme included an investigation into 
the evidence of the early Christian centuries, and the 
book is therefore in one sense no doubt incomplete. On 



vi PREFACE, 

the other hand it is no mere fragment The lectures 
as they stand practically exhaust the evidence of the 
New Testament, at least as far as the Early History 
of Christian institutions is concerned. And Dr Hort's 
conclusions on the vexed questions with regard to 
the ' Origines ' of the different Orders in the Christian 
Ministry will no doubt be scanned with peculiar 
interest. It is however by no means too much to say 
that it was the other side of his subject, * the Early 
Conceptions of the Ecclesia', that gave it its chief 
attraction for Dr Hort. And on this side unfortunately 
the limitations of lecturing compelled him to leave 
many things unsaid to which he attached the greatest 
importance. 

******** 

The course in 1889 began with a somewhat full 
recapitulation of the course delivered in 1888. I have 
not thought it worth while to print this recapitulation 
at length. A few modifications have however been 
introduced from it into the text of the original lectures, 
and a few additions appended as footnotes. Otherwise 
the Lectures are printed, with a few necessary verbal 
alterations, as they stand in the Author's MSS. I am 
further responsible for the divisions of the text, for the 
titles of the Lectures, and for the headings of the 
separate paragraphs. 



PREFACE. vii 

My best thanks are due to the Rev, F. G. Masters, 
formerly scholar of Corpus Christi College, Cam- 
bridge, for much help in revising the proof-sheets 
and for the compilation of the index. 

J. O. F. MURRAY. 



Emmanuel College, Cambridge. 
March \2th, 1897. 



CONTENTS. 

LECTURES ON THE EARLY HISTORY AND THE 
EARLY CONCEPTIONS OF THE ECCLESIA. 



The word Ecclesia. 

Its sense in the Old Testament. — Its sense in the Gospels. — The 
Ecclesia (without the name) in the Gospels. . . pp. i — 21. 



II. 

The Apostles in relation to the Ecclesia. 

The term ' Apostle ' in the Gospels. — The Last Supper. — The utter- 
ances after the Resurrection. — The new Apostolic mission. 

• . . • • pp. 22 — 41. 

III. 

Early Stages in the Growth of the Ecclesia. 

The witness in Jerusalem. — The appointment of the Seven. — The 
Ecclesia spreading throughout the Holy Land. . . pp. 42—58. 



x CONTENTS. 

IV. 

The Ecclesia of Antioch. 

The Origin of the Ecclesia. — Sending help to Jerusalem.— The 
Antiochian Mission. — The first missionary journey. — The Conference 
at Jerusalem. — The letter and its reception. — St Peter at Antioch. 

PP- 59—75- 

V. 

The Exercise of Authority. 

St James and his position. — The Authority of the Jerusalem Elders 
and of the Twelve. — The Twelve and the Gentiles. — The Government 
of the Ecclesia of Antioch. pp. 76—91. 

VI. 

St Paul at Ephesus. 

The later history of the resolutions of the Conference. — The founding 
of the Ecclesia of Ephesus. — St Paul's discourse to the Ephesian Elders 
at Miletus. — St Paul's reception at Jerusalem and at Rome. 

pp. 92 — 106. 

VII. 

The 'Ecclesia' in the Epistles. 

The uses of the word. — Individuals not lost in the Society. — Classes 
of Christian Societies termed Ecclesiae. — The many Ecclesiae and the 
one. pp. 107 — 122. 

VIII. 

The Earlier Epistles of St Paul. 

The Epistles to the Thessalonians. — The Epistles to the Corinthians. 
•—The Epistle to the Romans. .... pp. £23 — 134- 



CONTENTS. xi 



IX. 



The one Universal Ecclesia in the Epistles of 
the First Roman Captivity. 

The Epistle to the Philippians. — The Epistle to the Ephesians.— 
The image of the body. — Husband and Wife. . . pp. 135— T52. 



X. 

'Gifts' and 'Grace.' 

The meaning of the terms. — The source of the Gifts. — * Functions : 
not formal * Offices.' — The image of the ' Body.' — The image of ' build- 
ing.' — 'The foundation of the Apostles and Prophets.' — The Universal 
Ecclesia and the partial Ecclesiae pp. 153 — 170. 



XI. 

Titus and Timothy in the Pastoral Epistles. 

The interpretation of 1 Tim. iii. 14 f. — The Mission of Titus in 
Crete. — Timothy's Mission in Ephesus. — Timothy's antecedents. — 
Timothy's original appointment. — Timothy's xa.piaim., pp. 171 — 188. 

XII. 

Officers of the Ecclesia in the Pastoral Epistles. 

The qualifications of an Elder in Crete. — Elders in Ephesus accord- 
ing to 1 Timothy. — What is required of * Deacons.' — The words didKovos 
and dLOLKovia. — The function of * Deacons' in Ephesus. — The salutation 
in Phil. i. 1. — 'Laying on of hands' in 1 Tim. v. 22. — 'Laying on of 
hands ' in ordination. pp. 189 — 217. 



xii CONTENTS, 



XIII. 

Brief Notes on various Epistles, and 
Recapitulation. 

Directions for public prayer in i Timothy. — Various evidence of 
James, i Peter, Hebrews, Apocalypse. — Problems of the Second 
Century and later. — Recapitulation. . . . pp. 218 — 233. 



SERMON PREACHED AT THE CONSECRATION 

OF BISHOP WESTCOTT. .... pp. 234—250. 

Index . . pp. 251 — 258. 



LECTURE I. 

The Word Ecclesia. 

The subject on which I propose to lecture this 
term is The early conceptions and early history of the 
Christian Ecclesia. The reason why I have chosen 
the term Ecclesia is simply to avoid ambiguity. The 
English term church, now the most familiar repre- 
sentative of ecclesia to most of us, carries with it 
associations derived from the institutions and doc- 
trines of later times, and thus cannot at present 
without a constant mental effort be made to convey 
the full and exact force which originally belonged 
to ecclesia. There would moreover be a second 
ambiguity in the phrase the early history of the 
Christian Church arising out of the vague com- 
prehensiveness with which the phrase * History of the 
Church' is conventionally employed. 

It would of course have been possible to have 
recourse to a second English rendering ' congregation', 
which has the advantage of suggesting some of those 

H. E. I 



2 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 

elements of meaning which are least forcibly sug- 
gested by the word ' church ' according to our present 
use. ' Congregation' was the only rendering of etcicX^aia 
in the English New Testament as it stood throughout 
Henry VIII.'s reign, the substitution of 'church' 
being due to the Genevan revisers ; and it held its 
ground in the Bishops' Bible in no less primary a 
passage than Matt. xvi. 18 till the Jacobean revision 
of 1611, which we call the Authorized Version. But 
' congregation ' has disturbing associations of its own 
which render it unsuitable for our special purpose ; 
and moreover its use in what might seem a rivalry to 
so venerable, and rightly venerable, a word as 
'church' would be only a hindrance in the way of 
recovering for 'church' the full breadth of its 
meaning. * Ecclesia ' is the only perfectly colourless 
word within our reach, carrying us back to the 
beginnings of Christian history, and enabling us in 
some degree to get behind words and names to the 
simple facts which they originally denoted. 

The larger part of our subject lies in the region of 
what we commonly call Church History ; the general 
Christian history of the ages subsequent to the 
Apostolic age. But before entering on that region 
we must devote some little time to matter contained 
in the Bible itself. It is hopeless to try to under- 
stand either the actual Ecclesia of post-apostolic 
times, or the thoughts of its own contemporaries 
about it, without first gaining some clear impressions 



THE WORD ECCLESIA. 3 

as to the Ecclesia of the Apostles out of which it 
grew; to say nothing of the influence exerted all 
along by the words of the apostolic writings, and by 
other parts of Scripture. And again the Ecclesia of 
the Apostles has likewise antecedents which must not 
be neglected, immediately in facts and words recorded 
by the Evangelists, and ultimately in the institutions 
and teaching of the Old Covenant. 

In this preliminary part of our subject, to say the 
least, we shall find it convenient to follow the order of 
time. 

I am sorry to be unable to recommend any books 
as sufficiently coinciding with our subject generally. 
Multitudes of books in all civilised languages bear 
directly or indirectly upon parts of it : but I doubt 
whether it would be of any real use to attempt a 
selection. In the latter part of the subject we come 
on ground which has been to a certain extent worked 
at by several German writers within the last few 
years, and I may have occasion from time to time to 
refer to some of them : they may however be passed 
over for the present. 

The sense of the word in the Old Testament. 

The Ecclesia of the New Testament takes its name 
and primary idea from the Ecclesia of the Old Testa- 
ment. What then is the precise meaning of the term 
Ecclesia as we find it in the Old Testament? 

The word itself is a common one in classical Greek 



4 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 

and was adopted by the LXX. translators from Deu- 
teronomy onwards {not in the earlier books of the 
Pentateuch) as their usual rendering of qdhal. 

Two important words are used in the Old Testa- 
ment for the gathering together of the people of Israel, 
or their representative heads, 'edhdh [R.V. congrega- 
tion] and qdhdl[R.V. assembly]. 

Xvvaycoyj] [Synagogg] is the usual, almost the 
universal, LXX. rendering of 'edkdh, as also in the 
earlier books of the Pentateuch of qdhal. So closely 
connected in original use are the two terms Synagogue 
and Ecclesia, which afterwards came to be fixed in 
deep antagonism ! 

Neither of the two Hebrew terms was strictly 
technical : both were at times applied to very different 
kinds of gatherings from the gatherings of the people, 
though qdhal had always a human reference of some 
sort, gatherings of individual men or gatherings of 
nations. The two words were so far coincident in 
meaning that in many cases they might apparently 
be used indifferently : but in the first instance they 
were not strictly synonymous, 'edhdh (derived from 
a root y'dh used in the Niphal in the sense of gathering 
together, specially gathering together by appointment 
or agreement) is properly, when applied to Israel, 
the society itself, formed by the children of Israel or 
their representative heads, whether assembled or not 
assembled. 

On the other hand qdhal is properly their actual 



THE WORD ECCLES/A. 5 

meeting together : hence we have a few times the 
phrase q e hdl 'edhah 'the assembly of the congregation' 
(rendered by the LXX. translators in Ex. xii. 6 irav to 
ir\f}6o<; crvvaycoyrjs vlcov 'IcrparjX, in Num. xiv. 5 where 
no equivalent is given for q e hal irao~r)<$ awayeoyr)? vlwv 
'laparjX) and also q e hdl 'am * the assembly of the 
people' (rendered in Judg. xx. 2 ev ifCfcXrjcria rod Xaov 
rod Oeov, in Jer. xxvi. (LXX. xxxiii.) 17 Trdarj rfj 
(Tvvaywyrj tov Xaov), The special interest of this 
distinction lies in its accounting for the choice of the 
rendering iicfcXrjcria: qdhal is derived from an obsolete 
root meaning to call or summon, and the resemblance 
to the Greek /caXeco naturally suggested to the LXX. 
translators the word iiacXr^aia, derived from /caXeco (or 
rather i/cfcaXea)) in precisely the same sense. 

There is no foundation for the widely spread notion 
that ifCfcXTjaia means a people or a number of individual 
men called out of the world or mankind. In itself the 
idea is of course entirely Scriptural, and moreover it 
is associated with the word and idea * called/ * calling/ 
'call/ But the compound verb i/cKaXeco is never so 
used, and i/cKXrja-Ca never occurs in a context which 
suggests this supposed sense to have been present to 
the writer's mind. Again, it would not have been 
unnatural if this sense of calling out from a larger 
body had been as it were put into the word in later 
times, when it had acquired religious associations. 
But as a matter of fact we do not find that it was so. 
The original calling out is simply the calling of the 



6 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 

citizens of a Greek town out of their houses by the 
herald's trumpet to summon them to the assembly 
and Numb. x. shews that the summons to the Jewish 
assembly was made in the same way. In the actual 
usage of both qdhdl and ifCfcXrjaia this primary idea of 
summoning is hardly to be felt. They mean simply 
an assembly of the people; and accordingly in the 
Revised Version of the Old Testament ' assembly ' is 
the predominant rendering of qdhdl. 

So much for the original and distinctive force of 
the two words, in Hebrew and Greek. Now we must 
look a little at their historical application in the Old 
Testament. 

'edhdh is by far the commoner word of the two 
in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Joshua, but it is 
wholly absent from Deuteronomy. The two words 
are used in what appears to be practically the same 
sense in successive clauses of Lev. iv. 13; Num. xvi. 
3 ; and they are coupled together, iv /meaw eKKkrjaia^ 
zeal crvvaycoyr}?, in Pro v. v. 14 (LXX.). Both alike are de- 
scribed sometimes as the congregation or assembly of 
Israel, sometimes as the congregation or assembly of 
Jehovah ; sometimes as the congregation or the 
assembly absolutely. In the later books 'edhdh goes 
almost out of use. It is absent from Chronicles ex- 
cept once in an extract from Kings or the source of 
Kings (2 Chr. v. 6). It recurs (in the sense of con- 
gregation of Israel, I mean) but two or three times in 
the Psalms and the same in the Prophets. 



THE WORD ECCLESIA. 7 

In these, and in the poetical books, qdhdl is hardly 
more common, but it abounds in Chronicles, Ezra and 
Nehemiah. It would seem that after the return from 
the Exile this, the more definite and formal word, came 
to combine the shades of meaning belonging to both. 
Thus €/c/c\r]cria y as the primary Greek representative 
of qdhdl would naturally for Greek-speaking Jews 
mean the congregation of Israel quite as much as 
an assembly of the congregation. 

In the Apocrypha both avvay&yi] and e/cfcXrjala 
are to be found : but it would take too long to ex- 
amine the somewhat intricate variations of sense 
to be found there 1 . But with regard to these words, 
like many others of equal importance, there is a 
great gap in our knowledge of the usage of Greek 
Judaism. Philo gives us no help, the thoughts which 
connect themselves with the idea of a national etc- 
ickrjcria being just of the kind which had least interest 
for him; and Josephus's ostentatious classicalism de- 
prives us of the information which a better Jew in 
his position might have afforded us. For our purpose 
it would be of peculiar interest to know what and 
how much the term enicX^ala meant to Jews of the 
Dispersion at the time of the Christian Era : but here 
again we are, I fear, wholly in the dark. 



1 There is an indication that (rvvayooyq was coming to mean the 
local congregation in Sir. xxiv. 23 and especially in Ps. Sal. x. 7. 8. 



THE WORD ECCLESIA. 



The sense of the word in the Gospels, 

It is now time to come to the New Testament and 
its use of eK/c\7]<TLa, bearing in mind that it is a word 
which had already a history of its own, and which 
was associated with the whole history of Israel. It is 
also well to remember that its antecedents, as it was 
used by our Lord and His Apostles, are of two kinds, 
derived from the past and the present respectively. 
Part, the most important part, of its meaning came 
from its ancient and what we may call its religious 
use, that is from the sense or senses which it had 
borne in the Jewish Scriptures; part also of its 
meaning could not but come from the senses in which 
it was still current in the everyday life of Jews. We 
may be able to obtain but little independent evidence 
on this last head : but it needs only a little reflexion 
to feel sure that in this as in other cases contemporary 
usage cannot have been wholly inoperative. 

The actual word i/acXrjcria, as many know, is in 
the Gospels confined to two passages of St Matthew. 
This fact has not unnaturally given rise to doubts as 
to the trustworthiness of the record. These doubts 
however seem to me to be in reality unfounded. If 
indeed it were true that matter found in a single 
Gospel only is to be regarded with suspicion as not 
proceeding from fundamental documents common to 
more than one, then doubtless these passages would 



THE WORD ECCLESIA. 9 

be open to doubt. But if, as I believe to be the true 
view, each evangelist had independent knowledge or 
had access to fresh materials by which he was able to 
make trustworthy additions to that which he obtained 
from previous records, then there is no a priori 
reason for suspecting these two passages of the First 
Gospel. 

It is further urged that these passages have the 
appearance of having been thrust into the text in 
the Second Century in order to support the growing 
authority of the Ecclesia as an external power. An 
interpolation of the supposed kind would however be 
unexampled, and there is nothing in the passages 
themselves, when carefully read, which bears out the 
suggestion. Nay, the manner in which St Peter's 
name enters into the language about the building of 
Messiah's Ecclesia could not be produced by any 
view respecting his office which was current in the 
Second Century. In truth, the application of the term 
iKK\r}crLa by the Apostles is much easier to understand 
if it was founded on an impressive saying of our 
Lord. On the other hand, during our Lord's lifetime 
such language was peculiarly liable to be misunder- 
stood by the outer world of Jews, and therefore it is 
not surprising if it formed no part of His ordinary 
public teaching. 

It will be convenient to take first the less impor- 
tant passage, Matt, xviii. 17. Here our Lord is 
speaking not of the future but the present, instructing 



io THE WORD ECCLESIA. 

His disciples how to deal with an offending brother. 
There are three stages of eXeygis, or bringing his fault 
home to him ; first with him alone, next with two or 
three brethren; and if that fails, thirdly with the 
eiackriGia, the whole brotherhood. The principle holds 
good in a manner for all time. The actual precept is 
hardly intelligible if the eKKK^aia meant is not the 
Jewish community, apparently the Jewish local com- 
munity, to which the injured person and the offender 
both belonged. 

We are on quite different ground in the more 
famous passage, Matt. xvi. 18. At a critical point in 
the Ministry, far away in the parts of Caesarea 
Philippi, our Lord elicits from Peter the confession, 
" Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the Living God," 
and pronounces him happy for having been Divinely 
taught to have the insight which enabled him to make 
it : " Yea and I say to thee," He proceeds, " that thou 
art Peter (IIeT/009, kepka), and on this irerpa I will 
build my Ecclesia and the gates of Hades shall 
not prevail against it." 

Here there is no question of a partial or 
narrowly local Ecclesia. The congregation of God, 
which held so conspicuous a place in the ancient 
Scriptures, is assuredly what the disciples could 
not fail to understand as the foundation of the 
meaning of a sentence which was indeed for the 
present mysterious. If we may venture for a moment 
to substitute the name Israel, and read the words as 



THE WORD ECCLESIA. n 

'on this rock I will build my Israel,' we gain an 
impression which supplies at least an approximation 
to the probable sense. The Ecclesia of the ancient 
Israel was the Ecclesia of God ; and now, having been 
confessed to be God's Messiah, nay His Son, He could 
to such hearers without risk of grave misunderstanding 
claim that Ecclesia as His own. 

What He declared that He would build was in 
one sense old, in another new. It had a true con- 
tinuity with the Ecclesia of the Old Covenant ; the 
building of it would be a /^building 1 . Christ's work in 
relation to it would be a completion of it, a bestowal 
on it of power to fulfil its as yet unfulfilled Divine 
purposes. 

But it might also be called a new Ecclesia, as 
being founded on a new principle or covenant, and 
in this sense might specially be called the Ecclesia of 
Messiah, Messiah actually manifested ; and under 
such a point of view building rather than rebuilding 
would be the natural verb to use. It is hardly 
necessary to remind you how these two contrasted 
aspects of the Gospel, as at once bringing in the new, 
and fulfilling and restoring the old. are inseparably 
intertwined in our Lord's teaching. 

Hence we shall go greatly astray if we interpret 



1 Cf. Acts xv. 1 6, where James quotes Amos ix. n, "In that day 
will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the 
breaches thereof ; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in 
the days of old." 



12 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 

our Lord's use of the term Ecclesia in this cardinal 
passage exclusively by reference to the Ecclesia known 
to us in Christian history. Speaking with reference 
to the future, He not only speaks (as the phrase is) 
" in terms of " the past, but emphatically marks the 
future as an outgrowth of the past. Here however a 
question presents itself which we cannot help asking, — 
asking in all reverence. How came our Lord to make 
choice of this particular word, or a word belonging 
to this particular group ? Common as are the two 
Hebrew words which we have examined, 'edhdh and 
qdhdly they do not occur in any of the important 
passages which describe or imply the distinctive 
position of Israel as a peculiar people. Their use is 
mainly confined to historical parts of the historical 
book. They have no place in the greater prophecies 
having what we call a Messianic import. From all 
parts of the book of Isaiah they are both entirely 
absent. ' People/ 'dm, \<zo9, is the term which first 
occurs to us as most often applied to Israel in this 
as well as in other connexions, and which has also, 
under limitations, considerable Apostolic sanction 
as applied to the Christian Ecclesia. But on reflexion 
we must see, I think, that * people ' was a term which, 
thus applied, belonged in strictness only to that past 
period of the w r orld's history in which the society of 
men specially consecrated to God was likewise a 
nation, one of many nations, and in the main a race, 
one of many races. It would have been a true word, 



THE WORD ECCLESIA. 13 

but, as used on this occasion, liable to be misunder- 
stood. This impression is confirmed by examination 
of the passages of the New Testament in which Xao'9 
(people) is applied to the Christian Ecclesia. It will 
be found that they almost always include a direct 
appropriation of Old Testament language 1 . 

If the term 'people' was not to be employed, 
qdhdl (eK/cXrjcrla) was, as far as we can see, the fittest 
term to take its place. Although, as we saw just now, 
the use of the two words which we translate ' congre- 
gation ' and * assembly' in the Old Testament, is almost 
wholly historical, not ideal or doctrinal, there is one 
passage (Ps. lxxiv. 2) in which one of them wears 
practically another character. It is not a conspicu- 
ous passage as it stands in the Psalter ; but the 
manner in which St Paul adopts and adapts its 
language in his parting address to the Ephesian 
elders at Miletus (Acts xx. 28) amply justifies the 
supposition that it helped directly or indirectly to 
facilitate the use of ifc/cXrjaria to denote God's people 

1 Rom. ix. -25; 2 Cor. vi. 16; Tit. ii. 14; 1 Pet. ii. 9, 10; Heb. 
viii. 10; Ap. xviii. 4; xxi. 3. 

In Heb. iv. 9; xiii. 12 the term includes the ancient people, and is 
in fact suggested by the purpose of the Epistle as being addressed 
exclusively to Christians who were also Jews. 

In Acts xv. 14 6 debs iTrecTK^aro \a/3eu> e£ idvQv Xadv r$ dvdfxari 
atirov (Revised Version paraphrastically '• God did visit the Gentiles, to 
take out of them a people for his name"), the paradox of a people of 
God out of the Gentiles explains and justifies itself. 

Nor lastly is it a real exception when the Lord tells St Paul in a 
dream at Corinth that He has " Xads ttoXvs in this city" (Acts xviii. 10). 



H THE WORD ECCLESIA. 

of the future. " Remember thy congregation which 
thou didst purchase of old, didst redeem to be the 
tribe of thine inheritance." 

The original here is 'edhdh, and the LXX. ren- 
dering for it avvaycoy?]. St Paul substitutes ifCfcXrjaia 
as he also substitutes TrepieTroirjaaTo (' purchased ') for 
the too colourless i/cr^cro) (' acquired') of the LXX., 
while he further gives the force of the other verb 
' redeem ' by what he says of the blood through which 
the purchase was made. The points that concern us 
are these. Not ' people ' but ' congregation ' is the 
word employed by the Psalmist in his appeal to God 
on behalf of the suffering Israel of the present, with 
reference to what He had wrought for Israel in the 
time of old, when He had purchased them out of 
Egypt, ransomed them out of Egyptian bondage, to 
be a peculiar possession to Himself; these images 
of ' purchase ' and ' ransom ' as applied to the Divine 
operation of the Exodus being taken primarily from 
the Song of Moses (Exod. xv. 13, 16) ; and then fresh 
significance is given to the Psalmist's language by the 
way in which St Paul appropriates it to describe how 
God had purchased to Himself a new congregation 
(now called eKKkrjcria) by the ransom of His Son's 
lifeblood. This seventy-fourth Psalm is now generally 
believed to be a very late one ; it is not unlikely that 
in speaking of God's congregation rather than God's 
people, the Psalmist was following a current usage 
of his own time. If so, there would be an additional 



THE WORD ECCLESIA. 15 

antecedent leading up to the language which we 
read in St Matthew. But to say the least, the Psalm 
shews that such language was not absolutely new 1 . 

But the fitness of this language by no means 
depends only on the Psalm or on what the Psalm 
may imply. These words denoting f congregation ' 
or ' assembly ' had belonged to the children of Israel 
through their whole history from the day when they 
became a people. In the written records of the Old 
Testament they first start forth in this sense in 
connexion with the institution of the Passover 
(Ex. xii.) : they continue on during the wanderings 
in the wilderness, in the time of the Judges, under 
the Kings, and after the Captivity when the kingdom 
remained unrestored. Moreover they suggested no 
mere agglomeration of men, but rather a unity 
carried out in the joint action of many members, 
each having his own responsibilities, the action of 
each and all being regulated by a supreme law or 
order. To Greek ears these words would doubtless 
be much less significant : but what they suggested 
would be substantially true as far as it went, and 
it was not on Greek soil that the earliest Christian 
Ecclesia was to arise. 

This primary sense of e/cKXrjo-ia as a congregation 

1 The four passages of the Talmud quoted by Schiirer [Eng. Tr. n. ii. 
p. 59] to shew that qdhal came to have a high ideal character do not at 
ail bear him out. 



16 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 

or assembly of men is not altered by the verb " build" 
(olfcooo/uLTfO-co) associated with it. It is somewhat 
difficult for us to feel the exact force of the combina- 
tion of words, familiar as we are with the idea of 
building as applied to the material edifice which we 
call a church, and natural as it is for us to transfer 
associations unconsciously from the one sense to the 
other. To speak of men as being built is in accord- 
ance with Old Testament usage. Thus Jer. xxiv. 6 ; 
I will build them, and not pull them down ; and I 
will plant them, and not pluck them up (cf. xlii. 10); 
xxxiii. 7, I will cause the captivity of Judah and the 
captivity of Israel to return, and will build them, as 
at the first; and elsewhere. But no doubt the singular 
fiov rr/v €/cK\rjcrcav is meant to imply more distinctly 
the building up of the whole body in unity. 

What our Lord speaks of however is not simply 
building, but building "upon this rock/' It is im- 
possible now to do more than say in the fewest words 
that I believe the most obvious interpretation of this 
famous phrase is the true one. St Peter himself, yet 
not exclusively St Peter but the other disciples of 
whom he was then the spokesman and interpreter, 
and should hereafter be the leader, was the rock 
which Christ had here in view. It was no question 
here of an authority given to St Peter ; some other 
image than that of the ground under a foundation 
must have been chosen if that had been meant. Still 
less was it a question of an authority which should 



THE WORD ECCLESIA. 17 

be transmitted by St Peter to others. The whole 
was a matter of personal or individual qualifications 
and personal or individual work. The outburst of 
keenly perceptive faith had now at last shown St 
Peter, carrying with him the rest, to have the prime 
qualification for the task which his Lord contemplated 
for him. 

That task was fulfilled, fulfilled at once and for 
ever so far as its first and decisive stage was concerned, 
in the time described in the earliest chapters of the 
Acts. The combination of intimate personal ac- 
quaintance with the Lord, first during His Ministry 
and then after His Resurrection, with such a faith as 
was revealed that day in the region of Caesarea 
Philippi, a faith which could penetrate into the 
heavenly truth concerning the Lord that lay beneath 
the surface of His words and works, these were the 
qualifications for becoming the foundations of the 
future Ecclesia. In virtue of this personal faith 
vivifying their discipleship, the Apostles became 
themselves the first little Ecclesia, constituting a living 
rock upon which a far larger and ever enlarging 
Ecclesia should very shortly be built slowly up, living 
stone by living stone, as each new faithful convert 
was added to the society. 

But the task thus assigned to St Peter and 
the rest was not for that generation only. To all 
future generations and ages the Ecclesia would 

h. e. 2 



i8 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 

remain built upon them, upon St Peter and his fellow 
disciples, partly as a society continuous with the 
Society which was built directly upon them in their 
lifetime, partly as deriving from their faith and ex- 
perience, as embodied in the New Testament, its 
whole knowledge of the facts and primary teachings 
of the Gospel. 

TJie Ecclesia {without the name) in the Gospels. 

We must not linger now over the other details of 
our Lord's words to St Peter; though the time we 
have already spent on those points in them which 
most directly concern our subject is hardly out of 
proportion to their importance in illustration of it. 
But we have not yet done with the Gospels. Though 
they contain the word efacXrjaia but twice, and refer 
directly to the Christian Ecclesia but once, in other 
forms they tell much that bears on our subject, far 
more than it is possible to gather up within our limits. 
This is one of the cases in which it is dangerous to 
measure teaching about things by the range of the 
names applied to things. Much had been done to- 
wards the making of the elements of the Ecclesia 
before its name could with advantage be pronounced 
otherwise than under such special circumstances' as 
we have just been considering. 

One large department of our Lord's teaching, 
sometimes spoken of as if it directly belonged to our 
subject, may, I believe, be safely laid aside. In the 



THE WORD ECCLESIA. 19 

verse following that which we have been considering, 
our Lord says to St Peter " I will give thee the keys 
of the Kingdom of Heaven." Without going into 
details of interpretation, we can at once see that the 
relation between the two verses implies some im- 
portant relation between the Ecclesia and the Kingdom 
of Heaven : but the question is, what relation ? The 
simplest inference from the language used would be 
that the office committed to St Peter and the rest 
with respect to the Ecclesia, would enable him and 
them to fulfil the office here described as committed to 
him, with respect to the Kingdom of Heaven. But the 
question is whether this is a sufficient account of the 
matter. Since Augustine's time the Kingdom of 
Heaven or Kingdom of God, of which we read so often 
in the Gospels, has been simply identified with the 
Christian Ecclesia. This is a not unnatural deduction 
from some of our Lord's sayings on this subject taken 
by themselves ; but it cannot, I think, hold its ground 
when the whole range of His teaching about it is 
comprehensively examined. We may speak of the 
Ecclesia as the visible representative of the Kingdom 
of God, or as the primary instrument of its sway, or 
under other analogous forms of language. But we 
are not justified in identifying the one with the other, 
so as to be able to apply directly to the Ecclesia 
whatever is said in the Gospels about the Kingdom of 
Heaven or of God. 

On the other hand, wherever we find disciples and 

2 — 2 



20 THE WORD ECCLESIA. 

discipleship in the Gospels, there we are dealing with 
what was a direct preparation for the founding of the 
Ecclesia. We all know how much more this word 
'disciples' sometimes means in the Gospels than 
admiring and affectionate hearers, though that forms 
a part of it ; how a closer personal relation is further 
involved in it, for discipleship takes various forms 
and passes through various stages. Throughout there 
is devotion to the Lord, found at last to be no mere 
superior Rabbi, but a true Lord of the spirit ; and 
along with and arising out of this devotion there is a 
growing sense of brotherhood between disciples. 

Chief among the disciples are those Twelve who 
from certain points of view are called Apostles, but very 
rarely in the Gospels ; sometimes e The Twelve ', more 
often simply ' The Disciples '. We do the Evangelists 
wrong if we treat this use of terms as fortuitous or 
trivial. It is in truth most exact and most instructive. 
Not only was discipleship the foundation of apostle- 
ship, but the Twelve who were Apostles were precisely 
the men who were most completely disciples. Here 
we are brought back to the meaning of the building 
of Christ's Ecclesia upon St Peter and his fellows. 
The discipleship which accompanied our Lord's 
Ministry contained, though in an immature form, 
precisely the conditions by which the Ecclesia sub- 
sisted afterwards, faith and devotion to the Lord, felt 
and exercised in union, and consequent brotherly 
love. It was the strength, so to speak, of St Peter's 



THE WORD EC CLE SI A, 21 

discipleship which enabled him, leading the other 
eleven disciples and in conjunction with them, to be 
a foundation on which fresh growths of the Ecclesia 
could be built. 

This point needs a little further examination, the 
exact relation of the Apostles to the Ecclesia, ac- 
cording to the books of the New Testament, being 
a fundamental part of our subject. 



LECTURE II. 

The Apostles in relation to the 
ecclesia. 

The term 'Apostle* in the Gospels. 

I SAID towards the close of my last lecture 
that the term 'Apostles' as applied to the Twelve 
was rare in the Gospels. Let us see what the 
passages are. The first is a very pregnant one, 
though simple enough in form, Mark iii. 13-16. Our 
Lord goes up into the mountain, and "calls to Him 
whom He Himself would, and they departed unto 
Him. And He made twelve, whom He also named 
Apostles, [such is assuredly the true reading, though 
the common texts create an artificial smoothness by 
omitting the last clause] that they should be with 
Him, and that He should send (aiToo-TeWy) them to 
preach and to have authority to cast out the demons ; 
and He made the Twelve... Peter (giving this name 
to Simon) and James etc." Here by what seems 
to be a double process of selection (though the 



APOSTLES IN RELATION TO THE ECCLESIA. 23 

word selection is not used), proceeding wholly from 
Himself, our Lord sets aside twelve for two great 
purposes, kept apart in the Greek by the double Xva : 
the first, personal nearness to Himself "that they 
should be with Him " : the second, " with a view to 
sending them forth", this mission of theirs having 
two heads, to preach, and to have authority to cast 
out the ( demons ', these two being precisely the two 
modes of action which St Mark has described in 
i. 39 as exercised by the Lord Himself in the 
synagogues of all Galilee, just as in the previous 
verses i. 14-34 he had described a succession of acts 
which came under these heads, the second head 
evidently including the healing of the sick. Lastly 
we learn that our Lord Himself, apparently on this 
occasion, called these twelve chosen men ' Apostles ' 
or * envoys \ 

Whether they were or were not sent forth im- 
mediately after this their selection, St Mark does 
not expressly tell us. But it is morally certain that 
he intended to represent the actual mission as not 
immediate. Such is the natural force of Xva anro- 
<niXkr) "with a view to sending them forth", and 
moreover more than one hundred verses further 
on (vi. 7) we read how when our Lord was going 
round the villages teaching, He called to Him- 
self the Twelve, "and began to send them forth by 
two and two"; and so, after a brief account of His 
charge to them we read (vi. 12 f.) "and they went 



24 THE APOSTLES IN RELA TION 

out and preached that men should repent, and they 
cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many 
that were sick and healed them n : — again the two heads 
of what they were to do when sent forth. Then 
comes the story of Herod and John the Baptist ; and 
then (vi. 30) " and the Apostles are gathered together 
((TvvdyovTcu) unto Jesus, and they told Him all 
things whatsoever they had done and whatsoever 
they had taught" (again the two heads emphatically 
distinguished). Henceforward the word anroaroXo^ 
disappears from St Mark's Gospel ; so that he 
evidently used it only in the strictest sense, with 
reference to this one typical mission to preach and to 
heal, at the beginning of it and at the end of it. 
When he wishes afterwards 1 to mark them out sharply 
from the other disciples, he calls them " the Twelve/' 

Next, St Luke's Gospel is interesting both by its 
resemblances and by its differences. First comes a 
passage (vi. 12 ff.) which includes in itself both like- 
ness and unlikeness to St Mark. " It came to pass 
in these days that He went out unto the mountain 
to pray, and He continued all night in His prayer 
to God. And when it was day, He called His 
disciples, and choosing from them twelve, whom 
He also named Apostles, Simon..., and going 
down with them, He stood on a level place." Here 

1 See St Mark ix. 35 ; x. 32 ; xi. 11 ; xiv. 17: besides the Judas 
passages (xiv. 10, 20, 43)* 



TO THE ECCLESIA. 25 

the selection by our Lord is mentioned, and the 
name ' Apostles ' which He gave : but nothing is 
said of either purpose or work. The selection is 
associated with the Sermon on the Mount. We do 
hear however (vi. 17 f.) of the great crowd who 
were present " to hear Him " (the correlative of 
preaching) " and to be healed of their diseases ", 
" unclean spirits " being mentioned in the next 
sentence. Then, after a considerable interval, we 
read (ix. 1) how He called together the Twelve (the 
addition " Apostles " has high authority but is 
probably only an Alexandrine reading), and gave 
them power and authority over all demons and to 
cure diseases, and sent them forth {airearetXev) to 
preach the kingdom of God and to heal. After a 
charge of three verses only, we read (ix. 6) " And they 
going forth went throughout the villages, preaching 
good tidings and healing- everywhere". (Thus the two 
heads are twice repeated). Then Herod is spoken 
of for three verses, and in v. 10 (just as in Mark vi. 
30) we have the Twelve on their return described 
as Apostles, "And the Apostles when they had 
returned recounted to Him what they had done." 
If we pursue the narrative a little further, we shall 
hardly think this limitation of usage accidental. Two 
verses later (ix. 12) it is the Twelve who are said to 
come to our Lord and bid Him dismiss the multitude. 
In v. 14 they are called " His disciples", in vv. 16, 18 
" the disciples ", and so on. 



26 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 

In this Gospel however the term is not throughout 
confined to this limited usage. Three times afterwards 1 
it speaks of " the Apostles ", without any perceptible 
reference to that mission, while it also speaks of ' the 
Twelve' once 2 and of 'the Eleven' twice 8 . The ex- 
planation, I suppose, is that St Luke, having probably 
in his mind the writing of the Acts, which is (see 
Acts i. i f.) a kind of second part to the Gospel, in 
these three places used by anticipation the title which, 
as we shall see presently, acquired a fresh currency 
after the Ascension : in each of the three cases the 
accompanying language bears no trace of coming 
from a common source with anything in the other 
Gospels ; so that the warding is probably entirely 
St Luke's own. The anticipatory use thus supposed 
has no doubt an instructiveness of its own. It 
serves to remind us how all that period, in which the 
Twelve seemed to be only gathering in personal gains 
to heart and mind by their discipleship, was in truth 
the indispensable condition and, as it were, education 
for their future action upon others. 

St Matthew on the other hand gives even less 
prominence to the title 'Apostles' than St Mark. 
He tells us (x. i) that our Lord "calling His twelve 
disciples unto Him gave them authority over unclean 

1 See St Luke xvii. 5 ; xxii. 14 (the right reading) ; xxiv. 10. 
3 St Luke xviii. 31, besides the reference to Judas, xxii. 47. 
3 St Luke xxiv. 9 (just before rods d7ro(rr6Xoi;s), 33. 



TO THE ECCLESIA. 27 

spirits so as to cast them out and to heal every 
disease and every sickness/' " Now the names of the 
twelve Apostles," he adds, " are these...." In the other 
two Gospels we have had two separate incidents, the 
selection on the mountain, and the subsequent mission 
among the villages. Here in St Matthew the first 
incident is dropped altogether, so that in the first words 
of chap. x. " His twelve disciples " are spoken of as an 
already known or already existing body to whom 
powers are now given, and the list of names is prefixed 
to the account of their mission. We are not told that 
our Lord called them ' Apostles' nor is any other 
indication given that the term had a special meaning : 
nay, the word in this context might with at least as 
great propriety be translated 'envoys' as 'Apostles'. 
The nature of their mission is not expressly described, 
though our Lord's own previous action is spoken of 
(ix. 35) as "teaching in their synagogues and preaching 
the Gospel of the kingdom and curing every disease 
and every sickness." But St Matthew places here 
the well-known charge, introducing it with the words 
" These twelve Jesus sent {aireaTetXev) charging them 
saying," etc., and the charge itself almost at once 
puts forward the same heads of mission which we 
have found in the other Gospels. Thenceforward 
St Matthew never uses the term 'Apostle'. When 
he needs a precise designation, it is usually 1 , " His 

1 See St Matt. x. 1 ; xi. 1 ; xx. 17 v. 1. ; xxvi. 20 v, L 



28 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 

twelve disciples" or "the Twelve 1 ", and once (xxviii. 
1 6) "the eleven disciples". 

St John's usage, as is well-known, is more remark- 
able still. He never calls the Twelve "Apostles", 
unless it be by indirect allusion (xiii. 16) "A servant 
is not greater than his lord ; neither an envoy (one 
sent) greater than he that sent him." Of the Twelve 
he speaks in vi. 6j , 70 "Jesus said therefore to the 
Twelve ' Will ye also go ? ' " " Did not I choose you 
the Twelve, and one of you is a 8cd/3o\o<; ? " ; besides 
his use of the term to describe Judas (vi. 71) and 
Thomas (xx. 24). 

Taking these facts together respecting the usage 
of the Gospels, we are led, I think, to the conclusion 
that in its original sense the term Apostle was not in- 
tended to describe the habitual relation of the Twelve 
to our Lord during the days of His ministry, but 
strictly speaking only that mission among the villages, 
of w T hich the beginning and the end are recorded for 
us ; just as in the Acts, Paul and Barnabas are called 
Apostles (i.e. of the Church of Antioch) with reference 
to that special mission which we call St Paul's First 
Missionary Journey, and to that only. At the same 
time this limited apostleship was not heterogeneous 
from the apostleship of later days spoken of in the 
Acts, but a prelude to it, a preparation for it, and as 

1 See St Matt. xx. 17 v. 1. ; xxvi. 20 v. I. besides the Judas passages, 
xxvi. 14, 47. 



TO THE ECCLESIA. 29 

it were a type of it. Such sayings as that difficult 
one (Matt. xix. 28 || Luke xxii. 30) about sitting on 
twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel, are 
indications that a distinctive function was reserved 
for the Twelve throughout, over and above their 
function as the chiefest disciples. It remains true 
that the habitual, always appropriate, designations of 
the Twelve during our Lord's ministry were simply 
"the disciples" or "the twelve" or "the twelve dis- 
ciples ". 

And this use of names points to corresponding 
facts. Discipleship, not apostleship, was the primary 
active function, so to speak, of the Twelve till the 
Ascension, and, as we shall see, it remained always 
their fundamental function. The purpose of their 
being with Him (with the Lord) stands first in that 
memorable sentence of St Mark, and is sharply 
distinguished from the Lord's second purpose in 
forming them into a body, viz. the sending them 
forth to preach and to work acts of deliverance. But 
the distinction does not rest on those words alone. 
A far larger proportion of the Gospels is taken up 
with records of facts belonging to the discipleship 
than with records of facts belonging to the apostle- 
ship, so far as it is possible to distinguish them. 

The Last Supper. 

When the Ministry is over, and the end is begin- 
ning, the importance of the special discipleship of the 



30 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 

Twelve in relation to the future Ecclesia soon comes 
to light. The Last Supper is the most solemn and 
characteristic gathering together of the Twelve with 
the Lord at their head. There in the upper room 
they are completely "with Him'' and completely 
separated from all others. The words and acts at 
this supper, which constitute the institution of the 
Holy Communion, were addressed to the Twelve, and 
no others are spoken of as recipients of the command. 
Whatever directions for the future are present here 
are contained within the simple imperatives addressed 
to the Twelve, " take," " eat," " drink," and (if we add 
St Paul and the interpolation in St Luke's text 
derived from him) " do this." Of whom then in after 
times were the Twelve the representatives that evening? 
If they represented an apostolic order within the 
Ecclesia then the Holy Communion must have been 
intended only for members of that order, and the rest 
of the Ecclesia had no part in it. But if, as the men 
of the Apostolic age and subsequent ages believed 
without hesitation, the Holy Communion was meant 
for the Ecclesia at large, then the Twelve sat that 
evening as representatives of the Ecclesia at large : 
they were disciples more than they were Apostles. 

That central event of the Last Supper, as we all 
know, is not mentioned by St John : but there is a 
close connexion between its meaning and much of 
the contents of those five chapters of his Gospel, from 
the thirteenth to the seventeenth, which begin with the 



TO THE ECCLESIA. 31 

washing of St Peters feet, and end with the Lord's own 
last prayer before His departure from the city for the 
garden. Though the word ecclesia does not occur 
in these chapters, any more than in the rest of the 
Gospel, the inward characteristics of the Christian 
Ecclesia according to Christ's intention are virtually 
expounded in not a few of their verses. The seclusion 
of the Twelve, soon becoming the Eleven, with their 
Lord away from all other men, makes itself felt 
throughout : but it is equally clear that the little band 
of chosen ones, with whom those marvellous discourses 
were held, was destined to become no mere partial 
order of men but a people of God, an Ecclesia like the 
ideal Israel. The feet-washing in act, and the new 
commandment in words, lay down the primary law 
for the mutual action of the members of the Ecclesia, 
humility and love ; the similitude of the vine and the 
branches lays down their common relation to their 
Divine Head. The promise of the other Paraclete, 
the Spirit of the Truth, and the exposition of His 
working, are a new and pregnant revelation of life and 
light for the Ecclesia. In the last prayer the goal of 
unity is set forth in a sentence (xvii. 20) which expressly 
recognises the growth of the future Ecclesia from that 
little band : " Neither for these only do I pray, but 
for them also that believe on me through their word ; 
that they may all be one ; even as Thou, Father, art in 
me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in us ; that 
the world may believe that Thou didst send me." 



32 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 

These last words bring out the purpose of the Ecclesia 
in God's counsels : it is to draw the rest of mankind 
to its own faith and love ; to carry on a work of 
salvation, in the power of the salvation wrought by its 
Head : " as Thou didst send me into the world, I also 
sent them into the world." The whole Ecclesia shares 
alike in that transmitted Mission. 

The utterances after the Resurrection, 

Before we pass from the Gospels we must look for 
a moment at one or two famous passages belonging 
to the days after the Resurrection, especially to the 
last five verses of St Matthew, and to our Lord's 
appearance among the disciples on the evening of the 
first day of the week (John xx. 19-23), when He 
breathed on them and said " Receive ye the Holy 
Spirit..,." To discuss the contents of these passages 
would carry us into matters which it is happily not 
necessary to our purpose to examine in detail. But 
it is needful to point out the bearing of the results at 
which we have hitherto arrived, on the question as to 
the recipients of these two famous sets of words. 
Much stress is often laid on the supposed evidence 
afforded by the words of the evangelists that they 
were addressed exclusively to the Apostles. Dr 
Westcott has shown how, when we look below the 
surface, indications are not wanting that others were 
not improbably likewise present, at all events on the 



TO THE ECCLESIA. 33 

occasion recorded by St John, when his narrative is 
compared with that of St Luke (xxiv. 33 ff.). 

But in such a matter the mere fact that doubt 
is possible is a striking one. It is in truth difficult 
to separate these cases from the frequent omission 
of the evangelists to distinguish the Twelve from 
other disciples; a manner of language which, as we 
have seen, explains itself at once when we recognise 
how large a part discipleship played in the function 
of the Twelve. 

Granting that it was probably to the Eleven 
that our Lord directly and principally spoke on 
both these occasions (and even to them alone when 
He spoke the words at the end of St Matthew's 
Gospel), yet it still has to be considered in what 
capacity they were addressed by Him. If at the 
Last Supper, and during the discourses which followed, 
when the Twelve or Eleven were most completely 
secluded from all other disciples as well as from the 
unbelieving Jews, they represented the whole Ecclesia 
of the future, it is but natural to suppose that it was 
likewise as representatives of the whole Ecclesia of 
the future, whether associated with other disciples or 
not, that they had given to them those two assurances 
and charges of our Lord, about the receiving of the 
Holy Spirit and the remitting or retaining of sins 
(howsoever we understand these words), and about 
His universal authority in heaven and on earth, on 
the strength of which He bids them bring all the 

H. K. 3 



34 THE APOSTLES IN RELA TION 

nations into discipleship, and assures them of His 
own presence with them all the days even to the 
consummation of the age. 

This interpretation is not affected by the special 
language used in Matt, xxviii. 19, where bringing all 
the nations into discipleship is coupled with baptizing 
them into the Threefold Name. In the most literal 
sense of these words, they apply to the bearers of the 
message of the Gospel, chief among whom, ideally 
at least, were the Apostles; though the personal act 
of baptizing is somewhat markedly disconnected from 
evangelistic work by St Paul in 1 Cor. i. 14-17. In 
a word, the action of the Apostles is the most obvious 
expression, so to speak, of the charge then given. 
But the work of the Ecclesia in relation to the world 
is itself a missionary work; and it is to the Ecclesia 
itself as the missionary body that Christ's charge 
is ultimately addressed. 

The new Apostolic mission. 

On entering the Acts of the Apostles, we come at 
once to the term ' apostles \ It continues with us all 
through the book with the rarest exceptions 1 . This 

1 When the excitement caused by the miracle of Pentecost leads to 
St Peter's first discourse to the people it is said, " And Peter standing 
zvith the Eleven lifted up his voice and spake forth to them." So when 
the neglect of the Greek-speaking widows led to the appointment of the 
seven whom we call deacons, it is "the Twelve " who are said to call to 
them "the multitude of the disciples" (vi. 2). And once we have the 
compound term (i. 26), when Matthias is said to have been numbered 
"with the eleven Apostles". 



TO THE ECCLESIA. 35 

fact suggests that a change has passed upon the work 
or office of the Twelve : and such we actually find. 

Two points especially require notice. Their 
original mission, from which apparently proceeded 
the title 'apostle' given them by our Lord, was 
strictly confined to Judsea (Matt. x. 5 f.), " Go not into 
any way of the Gentiles, and enter not into any city 
of the Samaritans : but go rather to the lost sheep of 
the house of Israel." And the same charge which 
opens with these words contains the remarkable and 
by no means easy sentence (Matt. x. 23), " When they 
persecute you in this city, flee into the next ; for 
verily I say unto you, Ye shall not have gone through 
the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come." 
The limitation of the original apostolic mission here 
indicated is maintained strictly in the Gospels 
throughout the Ministry. Whatever tokens or express 
declarations of the destination of the Gospel for all 
nations may be recorded by the Evangelists in this 
part of their books, in no case, I believe, is any 
reference there made to the agency of the Apostles in 
extending the sphere of the message of salvation. 
No doubt it is sometimes said that the prediction of 
the Apostles being brought before rulers and kings 
(r/yefjioves and /Sacr^efc), which St Matthew places in 
that same first charge to the Apostles which we have 
just been looking at (x. 18), and St Mark and <St 
Luke in the discourse of judgement pronounced on 
the Mount of Olives in the last week (Mark xiii. 9; 

3—2 



36 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 

Luke xxi. 12), it is said, I say, that this prediction 
must refer to the heathen magistrates and potentates 
who withstood the Gospel in various parts of the 
Roman Empire. The words are however quite as 
naturally applicable to heathen rulers who, no less 
than the Jewish authorities, would be found hostile in 
Judaea itself. The allusion is, I strongly suspect, to 
the enemies of Jehovah and His Anointed, called in 
Ps. ii. 2 " the kings of the earth and the rulers " (LXX. 
apX 0VTes; )> a description which the Apostles recognise 
as fulfilled in Herod and Pontius Pilate as gathered 
together against our Lord Himself (Acts iv. 27), 
thus making a hostile combination of Gentiles with 
Jews. 

The extension of the range of the apostolic 
mission takes place between the Resurrection and the 
Ascension. Not to dwell again on the last charge at 
the end of St Matthew's Gospel, nor to refer by more 
than a word to the version of it preserved in a record 
of such uncertain authority as the Appendix to St 
Mark's Gospel, we read in Luke xxiv. 45 fif. how our 
Lord opened their mind to understand the Scriptures, 
and said to them that " thus it is written," not only 
" that the Christ should suffer and rise again on the 
third day," but also " that repentance unto remission of 
sins should be preached (or proclaimed) in His Name 
unto all the nations, beginning with Jerusalem." " Ye 
are witnesses," he adds, "of these things." 

This language is strikingly guarded. The going 



TO THE ECCLESIA. 37 

forth of the message of salvation is set forth as involved 
in the vision of the future which the prophets were per- 
mitted to see; but it is set forth wholly impersonally: 
nothing connects the Apostles themselves with it but 
the single saying "Ye are witnesses of these things"; 
a saying which perfectly w r ell admits of meaning no 
more than that the fundamental testimony of " these 
things " (itself an elastic phrase) was to be given by 
the Apostles, without further implying that they were 
to be themselves the bearers of the message founded 
on that testimony to heathen lands. 

Of less ambiguous import are the words which we 
read in Acts i. 8 as spoken to them by the Lord just 
before the Ascension, " Ye shall be my witnesses both 
in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and unto 
the utmost part of the earth." Here the utmost range 
seems to be given to the testimony which they are to 
bear in person ; and this, the most obvious sense, is 
confirmed by the previous sentence, " But ye shall 
receive power by the Holy Spirit coming upon you," 
such power from above being evidently intended to 
sustain them in their long and troubled course oi 
bearing witness. Thus universality is a characteristic 
of the new apostolic mission. 

In what manner the Twelve understood themselves 
afterwards to be charged with this enlarged responsi- 
bility, it is difficult to make out The admission of the 
Gentiles was assuredly not accepted at once without 
hesitation as a necessary consequence of the terms of 



$8 THE APOSTLES IN RELATION 

the Lords commission. But the mere recognition of 
His having at this solemn time so expressly dwelt on 
the ultimate world-wide destination of His Gospel, 
must have been enough to affect deeply the character 
of their work, even in its first and narrowest sphere 
at Jerusalem. 

The second characteristic of the new apostolic 
mission is that which has already come before us 
in connexion with its universality, — its work of 
bearing witness. This comes out with especial clear- 
ness in St Peter's address to the brethren respecting 
providing a successor to Judas: "Of the men," he 
says (i. 21 f), "that companied with us all the time 
that the Lord Jesus came in and went out unto us, 
beginning from the baptism of John unto the day 
that He was received up from us, of these must one 
become a witness with us of His Resurrection." This 
is the one essential condition mentioned, to be a 
witness of the Resurrection. The prayer that follows 
describes the office itself as "the place of this minis- 
tration and mission" (t^9 hiaKovia^ ravrr]^ kcli airo- 
aroXrj^) just as St Peter had previously (v. 17) called it 
" the lot of this ministration." But this does not alter 
the statement as to the indispensable qualification. 
Nor does this passage stand alone. Everyone must 
remember the persistency with which this apostolic 
witness-bearing to the crowning events of Gospel 
history is reiterated in the Acts, and especially in the 



TO THE ECCLESIA. 39 

early speeches in the Acts (ii. 32, 111. 15, iv. 33, v. 32, 
x. 39-41, xiii. 31). 

This mark of apostleship is evidently founded 
on direct personal discipleship ; and as evidently 
it is incommunicable. Its whole meaning rested 
on immediate and unique experience; as St John 
says, "that which we have heard, that which we 
have seen with our eyes, that which we beheld, 
and our hands handled" (1 John i. 1). Without a 
true perceptive faith, such a faith as shewed itself in 
St Peter, all this acquaintance through the bodily 
senses was in vain. But the truest faith of one who 
was a disciple only in the second degree, however 
precious in itself, could never qualify him for bearing 
the apostolic character. 

Apart from this unique function of being witnesses 
of the Resurrection, it is difficult to find in the New 
Testament any clear definition of the Apostolic office 
from the records of the time between the Resurrection 
and the Ascension. In the second verse of the Acts we 
read of our Lord giving them command (evTetXafievo?) 
on the day of His Ascension: but what were the 
contents of that commandment we know not, unless 
it was the charge to continue at Jerusalem awaiting 
the promise of the Father, the Pentecostal gift (i. 4, 
5 ; Luke xxiv. 49). So again in v. 3 we hear of His 
"appearing to them and saying to them the things 
concerning the kingdom of God": but more than this 
we do not learn. What Scripture says, and what it 



40 THE APOSTLES IN RELA TION 

leaves unsaid, together suggest that the new stage of 
Apostleship was inaugurated by no new act of 
appointment analogous to the original designation of 
the Twelve on the mountain, these commands and 
teachings that we hear of being rather like the 
subsequent charge to the Apostles on their going 
forth among the villages. On this view it was the 
Crucifixion (interpreted as always by the Resurrection) 
which constituted the real inauguration of the re- 
newed apostleship. We saw the other day how the 
work assigned to the Twelve, when first sent forth 
among the villages, was a repetition, so to speak, 
of the work which our Lord Himself was then 
pursuing, consisting of two heads, preaching and 
casting out demons, including the healing of sickness; 
or in other words, proclaiming the kingdom of God 
by word, and manifesting and illustrating it by 
significant act. The work that lay before them 
when His Ministry on earth was ended was not in its 
essence different from before : they had still to make 
known the kingdom of God by words and by deeds ; 
and this is the sole conception of their work put 
before us in the Acts. But there were two great 
changes. First, He Himself would no longer be 
visibly in their midst, so that the responsibility of 
guidance descended upon them, subject only to the 
indications of His Will, and enlightened by His Spirit. 
Moreover, this responsibility was not for a limited 
mission of short duration, but by its very nature was 



TO THE ECCLESIA. 41 

continuous and permanent. Second, He Himself, in 
His Death and His Resurrection, was now become a 
primary subject of their teaching and action : in the 
light of Him the kingdom of God put on a new 
meaning, and He was Himself the living repre- 
sentative of it 



LECTURE III. 

Early stages in the growth of the 

ecclesia. 

We now enter on the narrative of the time which 
followed the Ascension, limiting ourselves as far as 
possible to those parts of St Luke's record which 
illustrate the characteristics of the new Ecclesia and 
the stages of its growth ; but not neglecting either 
pieces of evidence relating to the Ecclesia under other 
names and descriptions, or the history of the use of 
the name ecclesia itself. 

On the return from the Mount of Olives the 
eleven remaining Apostles go up into the upper 
chamber where they were staying (i. 13), and thus 
renew, as it were, their coherence as a definite body. 

A somewhat larger body is next mentioned 
as " attending steadfastly with one accord upon 
' the prayer '," certain women, and the Lord's mother 
and brethren, being associated with the Apostles. 



THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 43 

This peculiar phrase taken in conjunction with " the 
prayers" (ii. 42) and "the prayer" (vi. 4) suggests 
that a definite custom of common prayer is intended, 
a bond of Christian fellowship. 

Next in v. 15 we read of a larger assembly, pro- 
bably the whole body of * brethren,' as they are em- 
phatically called, about 120 in number. " In the midst 
of the brethren," St Luke says, St Peter rose up and 
declared the need of filling up the place left vacant 
by Judas. 

The next chapter relates the appearance of the fiery 
tongues on the day of Pentecost, St Peter's discourse, 
and the results of it. The hearers, or some of them, 
are pricked to the heart and ask Peter and the other 
Apostles, whom they recognise as brother Israelites 
(avSpes d8e\<f)OL), " What shall we do ? " The answer 
is " Repent ye, and let each one of you be baptised in 
the name of Jesus Christ unto remission of your sins, 
and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit : for 
to you is the promise and to your children and to all 
that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God shall 
call unto Him." The other recorded words of his 
exhortation are significant, " Save yourselves from 
this crooked generation." This phrase '■ crooked gene- 
ration ' comes, you may remember, from what is said 
of the rebellious Israelites in the wilderness in Deut 
xxxii. 5. There is not a word against the ancient 
Ecclesia or people. The crooked generation of the 
unbelieving present, which perverts and misinterprets 



44 EARL Y ST A GES IN 

the ancient covenant, is the evil sphere to be 
abandoned. 

These men accept his discourse and are bap- 
tised. That is the definite act which signifies at 
once their faith in Jesus as Messiah, and thereby 
their joining of themselves to the society of His 
disciples; and on the other hand the acceptance of 
them by the Ecclesia. "And there were added on 
that day about three thousand souls." 

Then comes the description of the characteristic 
acts and practices by which these new members lived 
the life of members of the new brotherhood. " They 
continued attending steadfastly upon (irpoaKaprepovv- 
T69) the teaching of the Apostles and upon the com- 
munion, upon the breaking of the bread and upon the 
prayers." In the centre we see the apostolic body, a 
bond of unity to the rest. Their public teaching, 
replacing the public teaching of the scribes, carries 
on the instruction of converts who have yet much to 
learn, and attendance upon it is at the same time 
a mark of fellowship. Next comes what is called 
' the communion ', conduct expressive of and resulting 
from the strong sense of fellowship with the other 
members of the brotherhood, probably public acts by 
which the rich bore some of the burdens of the poor. 
Thirdly we have 'the breaking of the bread/ what 
we call the Holy Communion, named here from the 
expressive act by which the unity of the many as 
partakers of the one Divine sustenance is signified. 



THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 45 

Lastly we have 'the prayers', apparently Christian 
prayers in common, which took the place of the 
prayers of the synagogues. 

In the next group of verses we hear not merely of 
these new disciples, but of the whole body of which 
they had now become members. " All that believed 
together " says St Luke (this is his peculiar but 
pregnant description of membership), "all that be- 
lieved together had all things common ; and they 
sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to 
all, according as any man had need." This general 
statement is qualified and explained later. Evidently 
there was no law of the society imposing such sale : 
but the principle of holding all in trust for the benefit 
of the rest of the community was its principle of 
possession. "And day by day", the narrative proceeds, 
" attending steadfastly with one accord in the temple, 
and breaking bread at home, they partook of their 
food in exultation (ayaWcdaec) and singleness of 
heart, praising God and having favour with all the 
people. And the Lord added to their company day 
by day them that were saved " (or Revised Version, 
" were being saved " : neither rendering satisfactory). 
Such is St Luke's account of the inward spirit and 
outward demeanour of the new Ecclesia, not yet in 
any antagonism to the old Ecclesia but the most living 
portion of it, and manifestly laying claim by attend- 
ance in the temple to be a society of loyal sons of 
Israel. 



46 EARL Y ST A GES IN 

Thus far St Luke has been picturing" to us the 
Christian Ecclesia of Jerusalem antecedent to all 
persecution, moved simply by its own inherent 
principles. A fresh impulse towards consolidation 
comes from the onslaught of the Jewish authorities, 
due to the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful 
Gate of the Temple, an event which had at once 
caused an increase in the number of Christian be- 
lievers so that they reached five thousand (iv. 4). 
Peter and John, threatened by the Council, return " to 
their own company" (tou? ISlovs), almost certainly, 
I think, the apostolic company ; and together they 
pour forth a prayer in which they recognise that now 
they too are having to encounter the same opposition 
which by God's own providence had fallen upon His 
holy servant Jesus whom He anointed ; and they ask to 
be enabled to speak His word with all boldness while 
He stretches forth His hand for healing, and for signs 
and wonders to come to pass through the name of 
His holy servant Jesus : thus attesting once more in 
the most solemn way the two original heads of the 
active functions assigned to them. 

In St Luke's narrative this incident is followed by 
an emphatic statement that the multitude (irXrjOos) 
of them that believed had but one heart and soul, 
and a renewal in more precise terms of the former 
statement about their having all things common. 
" And with great power," he proceeds (iv. 33), " did the 



THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLES/A. 47 

Apostles of the Lord Jesus deliver their testimony of 
His Resurrection, and great joy was upon them all". 
The absence of want among them (ovBe jap ivSerf*; 
T£9 tjv) is given as a reason for this joy, the needs of 
the poor being provided for by the sale of lands or 
houses. In the former passage of similar import (ii. 
44 f.), we read only of a distribution of the purchase 
money by the members of the community at large, or 
possibly by the vendors themselves. Here on the 
other hand we read that the purchase money was 
brought and laid at the Apostles' feet for distribution, 
and further that Joseph, whom the Apostles called Bar- 
nabas for his power of exhortation, sold a field and 
laid the price at the Apostles' feet. This is the first 
indication of the exercise of powers of administra- 
tion by the Apostles, and, so far as appears, it was not 
the result of an authority claimed by them but of a 
voluntary entrusting of the responsibility to the 
Apostles by the rest. It was probably now felt that 
the functions and powers Divinely conferred upon 
them for preaching and healing as witnesses of the 
Resurrection, marked them out likewise as the fit 
persons to deal with the responsibilities of adminis- 
tration in carrying out the mutual bearing of burdens. 
The manner in which Barnabas's name is introduced 
is remarkable, as also the express mention of his 
laying the value of his field at the Apostles' feet. It 
does not seem unlikely that this important step on 
the part of the Ecclesia was taken at Barnabas's 



48 EARLY S TA GES IN 

suggestion ; just as with no less boldness and fore- 
thought he brought St Paul into close relations with 
the Twelve at Jerusalem (ix. 27), and encouraged the 
newly founded Ecclesia at Antioch at a sufficiently- 
critical time (xi. 22-24). 

The event which comes next, the falsehood and 
death of Ananias and Sapphira, is for our purpose 
instructive in more ways than one. First, St Peter's 
words "While it (the land) remained, did it not remain 
thine own ? and after it was sold was it not in thine 
own power (or right, e^ovaia)? " exhibit the real nature 
of the community of goods at this time practised in 
the Christian community. There was no merging of 
all private possessions in a common stock, but a 
voluntary and variable contribution on a large scale. 
That is to say, the Ecclesia was a society in which 
neither the community was lost in the individuals, nor 
the individuals in the community. The community 
was set high above all, while the service and help to 
be rendered to the community remained a matter of 
individual conscience and free bounty. Next, the 
reality of the bond uniting together the members of 
the Christian community was vindicated in the most 
impressive way by the Divine judgment which fell on 
Ananias and Sapphira by the shock at the discovery 
of their deceit. Falsehood or faithlessness towards 
the Holy Spirit, as St Peter calls it, was involved in 
their faithlessness to the community, affecting as they 
did to take part to the full in the lofty life of mutual 



THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 49 

help, while their hypocritical reservation made bro- 
therly fellowship an unreality. In consequence of 
this occurrence " great fear," we are told, " fell on the 
whole Ecclesia, and all that heard these things/' Up 
to this time, as Bengel points out, St Luke has used 
only such descriptive phrases as " they that believed ", 
" the brethren " etc. Now for the first time he speaks 
of the Ecclesia. Whether it was so called at the time, 
it is not easy to tell. No approach to separation from 
the great Jewish Ecclesia had as yet taken place. On 
the other hand our Lord's saying to St Peter must 
have been always present to the minds of the Apostles, 
and can hardly have been without influence on their 
early teaching. If St Luke used the word here by 
anticipation, it was doubtless with a wish to emphasise 
the fact that the death of Ananias and Sapphira 
marked an epoch in the early growth of the society, 
a time when its distinctness, and the cohesion of its 
members, had come to be distinctly recognised without 
as well as within. 

A short period of prosperity follows (v. 12 ff.). By 
the hands of the Apostles many miracles are wrought 
among the people. They were all with one accord in 
the great arcade called Solomon's Porch, reaching 
along the whole east side of the vast Temple precinct. 
" Of the rest/' says St Luke, meaning apparently those 
who elsewhere are distinguished from "the people", 
the priests, rulers, elders, scribes, " no one dared to 
H. e. ± 



50 EARLY STAGES IN 

cleave to them (i.e. however much he may have 
secretly become in conviction a Christian), but the 
people magnified them, and yet more were added to 
them, believing the Lord, multitudes of men and 
women ". Even the neighbouring towns, we read, con- 
tributed their sick and possessed, who came to be 
healed. This fresh success leads to a fresh imprison- 
ment of the Apostles ; but by Gamaliel's advice they 
are dismissed with a scourging and warning. But 
they continue day by day in the Temple and in 
private houses to proclaim the good tidings. 

The appointment of the Seven. 

We now come to an incident which concerns us 
both as itself a step in the organisation of the Eccle- 
sia, and as a prelude to an event which had decisive 
effects on the position of the Ecclesia as a whole, the 
martyrdom of Stephen. This incident is the appoint- 
ment of the Seven, answering to a great extent to 
those who were later called deacons. As the disciples 
multiplied, complaints were made by the Greek- 
speaking Jews settled in Jerusalem that their widows 
were neglected in the daily ministration (ScaKovia) for 
the relief of the poor, in comparison with the widows 
belonging to the Hebrew part of the community. 
The Twelve call to them the multitude (to irXrjdo^) 
of the disciples and say " It is not right (or desirable 
apearov) that we, leaving the word of God, should serve 
tables (huaicovetv Tpcnre^aLs) : but look ye out, brethren, 



THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 51 

men from among yourselves of good report, seven in 
number, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we 
will set over this office (or need, xpeias means either) : 
but we will attend diligently upon the prayer and 
upon the ministration (Sta/covca) of the word." The 
suggestion found favour with all the multitude. They 
chose out seven, including a proselyte from Antioch, 
and set them before the Apostles, who prayed and 
laid their hands on them. It is impossible not to 
connect this act with the laying of the contributions 
at the Apostles' feet. As being thus constituted 
stewards of the bounty of the community they were 
in a manner responsible for the distribution of the 
charitable fund. But the task had outgrown their 
powers, unless it was to be allowed to encroach on 
their higher Divinely appointed functions. They pro- 
posed therefore to entrust this special part of the 
work to other men, having the prerequisites of de- 
voutness and wisdom, to be chosen by the Ecclesia at 
large. How much this new office included is not 
easy to say. All the seven names being Greek, it 
seems probable that they were Hellenists, as otherwise 
it would be a strange coincidence that there should 
be no Hebrew names; and if so, it would also seem 
likely that they were charged only with the care of 
relief to Hellenists. We do not hear however of 
any analogous office for the Hebrew Christians, nor 
whether any general superintendence of the tunds was 
still retained by the Apostles. Nor again do we 

4—2 



52 EARL Y ST A GES IN 

afterwards hear anything more of these Seven in 
relation to their special work. The definite recogni- 
tion of special claims of Christian Hellenists was the 
essential point. Stephen's miracles and preaching 
were no part of his office as one of the Seven, though 
they may have led to his selection ; and Philip in 
like manner is known only as doing the work of an 
evangelist. 

But the appointment was not only a notable 
recognition of the Hellenistic element in the Ecclesia 
at Jerusalem, a prelude of greater events to come, but 
also a sign that the Ecclesia was to be an Ecclesia 
indeed, not a mere horde of men ruled absolutely by 
the Apostles, but a true body politic, in which different 
functions were assigned to different members, and a 
share of responsibility rested upon the members at 
large, each and all ; while every work for the Ecclesia ; 
high and low, was of the nature of a ' ministration ', a 
true rendering of a servant's service. 

Once more we hear that " the word of God grew, 
and the number of disciples in Jerusalem multiplied 
exceedingly, and a great multitude of the priests 
obeyed the faith." A little while ago it would seem 
that they were among those mentioned in v. 13 as not 
daring to cleave or join themselves to the Ecclesia. 
But now their faith had grown stronger and deeper ; 
and one after another they obeyed its call, and took 
the risks of joining the Christian congregation. 



THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 53 

The E celesta spreading throughout the Holy Land. 

We may pass over the discourse and martyrdom 
of Stephen. But the verse which follows the recital 
of his death (viii. 1) deserves our special attention for 
its language, and the facts which account for its 
language. " There came in that day a great persecu- 
tion upon the Ecclesia which was in Jerusalem (jrjv 
ifCfcXrjaiav rrjv ev 'lepocroXvfjbois): all were scattered 
abroad about the regions of Judaea and Samaria save 
the Apostles". In the single place where the word 
Ecclesia has before occurred in the Acts (v. 11), there 
has been no question of more than the one Ecclesia of 
all Christ's disciples. Here we have that same identical 
body, differing only by the reception of more numerous 
members, so described as to give a hint that soon 
there were to be in a true sense of the word (though 
not the only true sense) more Ecclesiae than one. 
The materials for new Ecclesiae were about to be 
formed in consequence of this temporary scattering 
of the original Ecclesia ; and moreover this first wide 
carrying of the Gospel through Judaea and Samaria 
was not the work of the Apostles : they are specially 
excepted by St Luke. Parenthetically in viii. 3 we 
read how Saul ravaged the Ecclesia, entering in house 
by house : and here the Ecclesia just spoken of, that 
of Jerusalem, seems to be meant, his prosecution of 
the persecution elsewhere even to Damascus being 
probably later. Of the work of one of the scattered 



54 EARL Y STA GES IN 

Christians, Philip the evangelist, we hear specially, its 
sphere being the representative city of Samaria. 
Tidings of his successful preaching and his baptizing 
of men and women having reached the Apostles at 
Jerusalem ("hearing that Samaria hath received the 
word of God" viii. 14), they depute Peter and John to 
go down. They found apparently no reason to doubt 
the reality and sincerity of the conversions. But the 
recognition of Samaritans as true members of the 
Christian community, hitherto exclusively Jewish, was 
so important a step outwards from the first, and now 
by long custom established, state of things that they 
evidently shrank from giving full and unreserved wel- 
come to the new converts, unless they could obtain 
a conspicuous Divine sanction, what is called in this 
book receiving the (or a) Holy Spirit. What is meant 
is shown clearly by comparison with x. 44-48 and 
xix. 6, 7, viz. the outward marvellous signs of the 
Spirit, such as manifested themselves on the Day of 
Pentecost, speaking with tongues, with or without 
prophesying. " These which received the Holy Spirit 
even as we did" (x. 47) is the phrase in which St Peter 
describes the Divine sanction which justified recogni- 
tion for Christian discipleship and membership. In 
this case the baptism of the Samaritan converts had 
been followed by no such tokens from heaven, and so 
they prayed for them that they might receive the 
Holy Spirit, and then laid their hands on them (the 
human symbolic act answering to the Heavenly act 



THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 55 

prayed for) and they received the Holy Spirit {eKdfi- 
fiavov not eXaftov), that is, shewed a succession of 
signs of the Spirit. After the interlude of Simon 
Magus the Apostles return to Jerusalem, and on the 
way they themselves preach the Gospel to many 
Samaritan villages. 

We need not examine the story of Philip and the 
eunuch, or even the conversion of St Paul, his 
recovery from blindness, preaching at Damascus, 
escape from attempted murder, admission to the 
confidence of the Apostles by the instrumentality of 
Barnabas, and on a fresh attempt to kill him, his 
departure for his native Tarsus. In passing it is 
worth notice that the man who lays hands on St Paul 
and baptizes him is no Apostle or even evangelist, 
but a simple disciple of Damascus, Ananias (ix. 17, 
18). The last verse of the story (ix. 31) is this : " So 
the Ecclesia throughout all Judaea and Galilee and 
Samaria had peace, being built ; and walking by the 
fear of the Lord and by the invocation (TrapdfcXrja^) of 
the Holy Spirit (probably the invoking His guidance as 
Paraclete to the Ecclesia), was multiplied." Here again 
the Ecclesia has assumed a wider range. It is no longer 
the Ecclesia of Jerusalem nor is it the several Ecclesiae 
of Jerusalem and Samaria and other places. That is 
language which we shall find in St Paul, but not in 
the Acts, except as regards regions external to the 
Holy Land. The Ecclesia was still confined to 
Jewish or semi-Jewish populations and to ancient 



56 EARLY STAGES IN 

Jewish soil ; but it was no longer the Ecclesia of a 
single city, and yet it was one: probably as corre- 
sponding, by these three modern representative 
districts of Judaea, Galilee and Samaria, to the ancient 
Ecclesia which had its home in the whole land of 
Israel. 

These limits however were soon to be crossed. 
The first step takes place on a journey of St Peter 
through the whole land (hiep^o^vov Sia 7rdvrcov, ix. 
32), which shews that he regarded the whole as now 
come within the sphere of his proper work, as it had 
to all intents and purposes been within the sphere 
of his work in the prelusive ministrations accom- 
panying the Lord's own Ministry. On his way down 
to the coast he is said to have come to " the saints " 
or " holy ones " that dwelt at Lydda. The phrase 
is a remarkable one. It has occurred once already 
a few verses back (ix. 13) in Ananias's answer to the 
word of the Lord spoken to him in a dream, " I 
have heard concerning this man (Saul) how much 
evil he did to thy saints at Jerusalem." Members of 
the holy Ecclesia of Israel were themselves holy by 
the mere fact of membership, and this prerogative 
phrase is here boldly transferred to the Christians by 
the bold Damascene disciple. Its use is the correlative 
of the use of the term Ecclesia, the one relating to 
individuals as members of the community, the other 
to the community as a whole. It occurs once more 



THE GROWTH OF THE ECCLES/A. 57 

in the same little group of events (ix. 41), and once on 
St Paul's own lips in the bitterness of his self-accusa- 
tion for his acts of persecution, in his defence before 
King Agrippa (xxvi. 10), probably in intentional 
repetition of Ananias's language respecting those 
same acts of his. It was a phrase that was likely 
to burn itself into his memory in that connexion. 
All know how commonly it occurs in the Epistles 
and Apocalypse, but its proper original force is not 
always remembered. 

Then comes the story of Cornelius, the Roman 
Centurion in the great chiefly heathen seaport of 
Caesarea, and his reception and baptism by St Peter, 
on the double warrant of the vision at Joppa and 
the outburst of the mysterious tongues while Peter 
was yet speaking. This was the act of Peter on his 
own sole responsibility, and at first it caused disquiet 
among some at least of the original members of the 
Ecclesia. We read (xi. 1) " Now the apostles and the 
brethren that were in Judaea (or rather perhaps, all 
about Judaea, /card rrjv 'lovSaiav) heard that the 
Gentiles also had received the word of God." And 
when Peter went up to Jerusalem they of the " circum- 
cision " {ix. probably those spoken of in x. 45, who 
had accompanied St Peter, for as yet there is no 
sign of uncircumcised believers) disputed with Peter 
for eating with men uncircumcised. This was ap- 
parently a complaint preferred in the presence of the 



58 EARL Y STAGES IN GRO WTH OF THE ECCLESIA. 

Apostles and brethren, but we hear nothing of any- 
formal assertion of authority either by St Peter him- 
self, or by the Apostles generally, or by the Apostles 
and brethren together. St Peter simply seeks to 
carry the whole body with him by patient explana- 
tion of the circumstances and considerations belonging 
to the case. And he has his reward : the objectors 
hold their peace (ficrvyavav, a word which points to 
the objectors) and glorify God for having given the 
Gentiles also repentance unto life. It was a great 
step that was thus taken ; but it did not lie outside 
the local limits of the ancient Ecclesia. Cornelius 
was a sojourner in the land of Israel, and moreover 
one of them that feared or reverenced God, as it was 
called, a proselyte of the less strict sort 



LECTURE IV, 

The Ecclesia of Antioch. 

The Origin of the Ecclesia. 

THE pause before the local limits of the ancient 
Ecclesia were overstepped was of short duration. St 
Luke's next section tells us how fugitives from the per- 
secution which began with Stephen had preached the 
word all along the Syrian coast up to Antioch, and by 
this time a large number of disciples had been gather- 
ed together. In other words, here was a great capital, 
including a huge colony of Jews, in close relations 
with all the Greek-speaking world and all the Syriac- 
speaking world ; and in its midst a multitude of 
Christian disciples had come into existence in the 
most casual and unpremeditated way. No Apostle 
had led or founded a mission ; no Apostle had taught 
there. But there the Christian congregation was, and 
its existence and future could not but be of the highest 
interest to the original body of Christians. What the 



60 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 

relations would be between the two bodies was cer- 
tainly not a question that could be answered off hand. 
" Hearing the tidings ", we read (xi. 22), " the Ecclesia 
which was at Jerusalem " (here once more we have 
a narrower title, doubtless with a view to the anti- 
thesis of Jerusalem and Antioch) "sent forth Barnabas 
to Antioch." Barnabas, as we know, was not one of 
the Twelve. Probably the Twelve themselves felt that 
at the present moment it might be imprudent to take 
part personally in the affairs of Antioch, and to put 
forth even the semblance of apostolic authority there. 
But they (and not they only but the whole Ecclesia) 
sent a trusted envoy whose discretion could be relied 
on. He came and recognised what St Luke calls 
" the grace that was of God " (rrjv x^P LV T7 1 v T °v feov), 
(the repetition of the article in the true text is full of 
meaning), the merciful extension of the area of saving 
knowledge and faith, and that by a kind of instru- 
mentality which could be referred to nothing but the 
Providence of God. Accordingly, as a true son of 
encouragement or exhortation, Barnabas exhorted 
{nrapeicaXeL) all to abide by the purpose of their heart 
in the Lord, and many fresh conversions were the 
result of his teaching. But feeling apparently that 
this was a work for which St . Paul's experience 
peculiarly fitted him, he fetched him from Tarsus, 
and together at Antioch they spent a year. The 
disciples, we are told, were there first called Christians; 
but there is reason to believe that St Luke does not 



THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH 61 

mean that the name was assumed by themselves. 
Me does speak of Paul and Barnabas being "hospita- 
bly received 1 in the Ecclesia", thereby recognising the 
disciples at Antioch as forming an Ecclesia — a signi- 
ficant fact as regards both the recognition of this 
irregularly founded community at Antioch, and the 
changes in the use of the term ecclesia itself. Still 
however it was a community of men who were in 
some sense or other Jewish Christians: the widely 
spread opinion to the contrary rests on the wrong 
reading "JLWrjva? in xi. 20. 

Sending help to Jerusalem. 

Before long an opportunity came for a practical 
exhibition of fellowship between the two communities. 
The famine in Judaea led to the sending of help (eh 
hiCLKovlav) by the disciples at Antioch to the brethren 
in Judaea. It was sent by Barnabas and Paul, and 
sent to "the elders" (xi. 30). Who were they? And 
why was it not sent to the Apostles ? Both questions 
have been practically answered by Dr Lightfoot. 
He points out 2 that St Luke's narrative of the perse- 
cution by Herod in xii. 1-19 (his vexing of certain 
of them of the Ecclesia) comes in parenthetically in 

1 Such is the least difficult explanation of the curious word <rvv- 
axOijvai. as in Matt. xxv. and (with els Tbv oIkov, els ttjv oIkIcw) some 
Old Testament passages ; also their original 'dsaph {to gather) in Ps. 
xxvii. 10. 

2 GalatiariSy p. 123, n. 3, p. 126. 



62 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 

connexion with this mission to Jerusalem, but pro- 
bably preceded it in order of time. After the murder 
of James the son of Zebedee, St Peter, we are told 
(xii. 17), on being delivered from prison (after prayer 
being earnestly made by the Ecclesia) " went to 
another place"; and it is likely enough that the 
other ten did the same. It is possible that on 
their departure they appointed elders to whom to 
entrust the care of the Ecclesia in their absence. It is 
also possible that the Ecclesia itself may have pro- 
vided itself with elders when the Apostles departed. 
But it is more likely that they were in office already, 
and merely assumed fresh responsibilities under the 
stress of circumstances. Some have even thought 
that they were the Seven under another name. This 
is a very improbable hypothesis. But it is at least 
conceivable, supposing the Seven to have been 
appointed for the Hellenists alone, that there were 
already elders, and that these supposed elders at that 
time chiefly represented the Hebrew part of the 
community. This however is quite uncertain ; nor is 
it important to know. In any case it is but reason- 
able to suppose 1 that the Christian elders were not a 
new kind of officers, but simply a repetition of the 
ordinary Jewish elders, ^qemm, TrpecrjBvrepo!,, who con- 
stituted (as Dr Lightfoot says) the usual government 
of the Synagogue. "Hence," he adds, "the silence of 
St Luke. When he first mentions the presbyters, he 

1 See Lightfoot, Philippians, 191-3. 



THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 63 

introduces them without preface, as though the insti- 
tution were a matter of course.'' 

The Antiochian Mission. 

From this point the distinctive work of St Paul 
begins, and the first stage of it has a remarkable 
inauguration. At Antioch, " in the Ecclesia which was 
there ", there were certain prophets and teachers, five 
being named, Barnabas first and Paul last. The 
prophets here spoken of are probably the same, 
wholly or in part, as the prophets mentioned before in 
xi. 27 as having come down from Jerusalem to 
Antioch, Agabus being one of them. While they are 
holding some solemn service (described as \enovp- 
ryovvrcov ra> Kvpite) and fasting, the Holy Spirit speaks, 
evidently by the mouth of a prophet, " Separate me 
Barnabas and Saul unto the work unto which I have 
called them." The service here denoted by the verb 
\€irovpy€co was probably a service of prayer. The 
context suggests that it was not a regular and cus- 
tomary service (like "the prayer" at Jerusalem earlier, 
see p. 45) but a special act of worship on the part of a 
solemn meeting of the whole Ecclesia, held expressly 
with reference to a project for carrying the Gospel 
to the heathen. Thus the voice would seem to have 
sanctioned the mission of particular men, perhaps 
also even the project itself: but not to have been a 
sudden call to an unexpected work. The persons 



64 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH 

who are thus represented as doing service to the 
Lord are almost certainly the prophets and teachers 
mentioned just before. With fasting, prayer, and 
laying on of hands, Barnabas and Saul are let go. It 
is disputed whether the recipients of the prophetic 
word and performers of the last-mentioned acts of mis- 
sion, were the prophets and teachers, or the Ecclesia. 
But on careful consideration it is difficult to doubt 
that the mouthpieces of the Divine command should 
be distinguished from those who have to execute it. 
In other words the members of the Ecclesia itself are 
bidden to set Barnabas and Saul apart ; and it is the 
members of the Ecclesia itself that dismiss them with 
fast and prayer and laying on of hands, whether the 
last act was performed by all of them, or only by 
representatives of the whole body, official or other. 
So also on their return they gather the Ecclesia to- 
gether (xiv. 27) and report what has befallen them. 

This mission is no doubt specially described as 
due to a Divine monition : the setting apart comes 
from the Holy Spirit (to which in all probability the 
later words in xiii. 4 " being sent forth by the Holy 
Ghost " refer back) ; but the mission is also from 
the Christians of Antioch, whether directly or through 
the other three prophets and teachers, since the Holy 
Spirit, Himself the life and bond of every Ecclesia, 
makes the Christians of Antioch His instruments for 
setting Barnabas and Paul apart. It is with reference 
to this mission that, as I mentioned before, St Luke 



THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 65 

applies the name Apostles to Paul and Barnabas ; and 
under no other circumstances does he apply the name 
to either of them. Thus his usage both illustrates 
and is illustrated by 2 Cor. viii. 23 (" apostles of 
churches'') and Phil. ii. 25 ("your apostle," viz. Epa- 
phroditus). 

The first missionary journey. 

We need not follow the details of the journey, 
memorable for the turning from the Jews to the 
Gentiles at the Pisidian Antioch, and so beginning 
the preaching of the Gospel to heathen Gentiles in 
their own land. But we must not overlook one 
important verse, xiv. 23. Having preached success- 
fully at Lystra, Iconium and the Pisidian Antioch on 
the way out, they visit these cities again on the way 
home, stablishing {liridT^pl^ovTei) the souls of the 
disciples. Then " having chosen for them (xeipo70vr\- 
<ravT€<; — the confusion with ^etpoOecria is much later 
than the Apostolic age) elders in each Ecclesia (/car* 
i/ctcXrjaLav), having prayed with fastings, they com- 
mended them to the Lord on whom they had believed." 
Here first we find that these infant communities are 
each called an Ecclesia, not indeed (so far as appears) 
from the first preaching, but at least from the second 
confirmatory visit. Further, Paul and Barnabas follow 
the precedent of Jerusalem by appointing elders in 
Jewish fashion (elders 1 being indeed an institution of 

1 Lightfoot, Philippians 193. 
H. E. 5 



66 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 

Jewish communities of the Dispersion as well as of 
Judaea), and with this simple organisation they en- 
trusted the young Ecclesiae to the Lord's care, to 
pursue an independent life. Such seems to be the 
meaning of the phrase " they commended them to 
the Lord on whom they had believed" (xiv. 23), 
which resembles some of the farewell words spoken 
to the Ephesian Elders at Miletus (xx. 32). 

On their return to Antioch,"from whence", St Luke 
takes care expressly to remind us — " from whence they 
had been committed to the grace of God for the 
work which they fulfilled ", they at once proceed to 
give an account of the task entrusted to them. They 
call together the Ecclesia and relate what God had 
done with them and how he had opened to the 
Gentiles a door of faith. No defence or explanation 
was necessary here. They had done what they had 
been sent to do. The turning to the Gentiles (xiii. 46) 
had evidently been contemplated from the first as a 
probable contingency, though the Jews were to be 
addressed first. 

It is hardly necessary to say that these events, 
which happened about the year 50 A.D., constitute 
one of the greatest epochs, perhaps the greatest, 
in the history of the Ecclesia at large. Henceforth 
it was to contain members who had never in any 
sense belonged to the Jewish Ecclesia. There was 
henceforth no intelligible limit for it short of univer- 
sality : and thus, while it never cut itself off from its 



THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 67 

primitive foundation, it entered on a career which 
imposed on it totally new conditions. 

The Conference at Jerusalem, 

In the steps hitherto taken the Ecclesia of Antioch 
had acted independently and apparently without 
difference of opinion. But soon a troubling of the 
peace came from without, from Judsea. It is worth 
notice that we hear nothing of complaints against the 
Ecclesia of Antioch as having exceeded its legitimate 
powers. The appeal of the envoys from Judaea was 
simply to the Jewish law as binding on all Christians, 
" Except ye be circumcised after the custom of Moses, 
ye cannot be saved" (xv. 1). Evidently the heathen 
converts made by St Paul and St Barnabas had not 
been circumcised, and this proceeding had been ac- 
cepted by the Ecclesia of Antioch, and was evidently 
intended to guide their future action in regard to 
converts from the heathen. To act thus was to 
decide that Judaism was not the necessary porch of 
entrance into the discipleship of the Gospel, and that 
Gentiles might pass at once into the Christian fold 
without doing homage to the Jewish law, and without 
any obligation to future allegiance to it. It would 
have been surprising indeed if all the Jewish Chris- 
tians of Palestine had been ready at once, either to 
accept this as the right course to adopt, or to acquiesce 
in leaving the Christians of Antioch free to pursue 
their own way without hindrance or remonstrance. 

S— 2 



68 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 

What view the Twelve took of the matter, we do not 
know. It is hardly likely that the Jewish zealots 
within the Ecclesia of Jerusalem would commence an 
agitation at Antioch in person without having first 
tried to induce the leading men at Jerusalem to take 
action. If they did so, we know that they failed : 
nothing can be clearer in this respect than the words 
of the epistle recorded further on in the chapter (xv. 24), 
" Forasmuch as we have heard that certain of our 
number (jivh ef tj/jloov, so the rather startling right 
reading, meaning doubtless 'some members of our 
Ecclesia') — that certain of our number troubled you 
with words, disturbing your souls, to whom we gave no 
charge" (oh oi 8cear€t\d/jL€0a } 'we' being the Apostles, 
Elders, and the whole Ecclesia). But if the Twelve 
and other leading men refused to abet the Judaizing 
zealots, it does not follow that they already were firm 
and clear on behalf of the policy of Antioch : later 
incidents render it improbable that they were. Doubt- 
less they were not prepared to come to a final decision 
without taking time. 

What might have easily become a schism of 
impassable depth was averted by the forbearance of 
the brethren at Antioch. The disputes between the 
Judaizers and Paul and Barnabas led them to send 
Paul and Barnabas, with others, to hold a consultation 
with "the Apostles and Elders" at Jerusalem. It 
would seem as though St Paul himself hesitated at 
first about going, doubtless from a fear of compro- 



THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 69 

mising the cause which he was determined that no 
Jerusalem authority should lead him to abandon. "I 
went up ", he says (Gal. ii. 2), " in obedience to a reve- 
lation/' The envoys set out, " speeded on their way 
by the Ecclesia " (Acts xv. 3). They passed through 
Phoenicia and Samaria, telling the tale of the conver- 
sion of the Gentiles, and " caused great joy to all the 
brethren ": to those regions the scruples of Jerusalem 
had not spread. At Jerusalem " they were received 
by the Ecclesia and the Apostles and the Elders ", the 
three being carefully enumerated, as if to mark the 
formality of the reception, and its completely repre- 
sentative character. Before the assembly the envoys 
repeated the tale of the successful mission, and then 
the gainsayers, now described as of the sect of the 
Pharisees (xv. 5), rose up to maintain the necessity of 
circumcision and the retention of the Law, as obligatory 
on the Gentiles. Then the discussion would seem to 
have been adjourned. It was probably before the 
assembly met again that those private conferences 
with the leading Apostles took place to which alone 
St Paul makes explicit reference in his narrative in 
Galatians 1 . 

The final assembly is described by St Luke (xv. 6) 
at the outset as a gathering together of the Apostles 
and the Elders to see concerning this discourse (\6yov, 
practically, this matter). It can hardly be doubted 
that the Ecclesia at large was in some manner like- 

1 See Lightfoot, Galatians 124 f. 



70 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 

wise present 1 . This follows not only from the associa- 
tion of " the whole Ecclesia" with the Apostles and the 
Elders in the sending of a deputation to Antioch (v. 22), 
but still more clearly from the words "and all the 
multitude held their peace" in v. 12, since it is incon- 
ceivable that the body of Elders should be called " the 
multitude." On the other hand St Luke could hardly 
have omitted to mention the Ecclesia in that initial 
v. 6, unless the chief responsibility had been recog- 
nised as lying with the Apostles and the Elders. 

Every one knows the order of incidents, the 
opening speech by St Peter appealing to the very 
similar event of his own Divinely sanctioned admis- 
sion of Cornelius, and arguing against tempting God 
by laying on the neck of the disciples a yoke which 
neither their own Jewish fathers nor themselves had 
had strength to bear; next the recital by Paul and 
Barnabas of the signs and wonders by which God 
had set His seal to the work among the Gentiles ; 
then James's renewed reference to Peter's argument, 
confirmation of it from the prophecy of Amos, and 
final announcement of his own opinion (Slo iyco 
/cpivco) against troubling Gentile converts, but in 
favour of sending them a message (or possibly, en- 
joining them, eTTiGTeTkai) to observe four abstinences. 
These need not be considered now 2 . It is enough 

1 Solren. cont. Haer. III. xii. 14 cum... uni versa ecclesia convenisset 
in unum. 

2 See Hort's Judaistic Christianity, pp. 68 ff. 



THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 71 

to say that on the two points at issue, circumcision 
and the bindingness of the Jewish law, they give 
no support to the demands of the Judaizers. Whether 
the abstinences here laid down be of Jewish or even 
Mosaic origin or not, at most they are isolated 
precepts of expediency, not resting on the principle 
which was in dispute. And lastly we have the decision 
of " the apostles and the elders and all the ecclesia " 
to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas two chosen 
envoys from their own number, " leading men among 
the brethren ", Judas Barsabbas and Silas, and with 
them a letter. 

The letter and its reception. 

The salutation at the head of the letter is from 
" the apostles and the elder brethren to the brethren 
who are of the Gentiles throughout Antioch and 
Syria and Cilicia" (such seems to be the force of Kara 
with a single article for the three names), the central 
and in every way most important, Antioch, being 
placed at the head, and then the rest of Syria, and 
the closely connected region of Cilicia. The Ecclesia 
is not separately mentioned in the salutation ; on the 
other hand the unusual phrase " the elder brethren " 
(for such is assuredly not only the right reading but 
the right punctuation) indicates that they who held 
the office of Elder were to be regarded as bearing the 
characteristic from which the title itself had arisen, and 
were but elder brothers at the head of a great 



72 THE ECCLESTA OF ANTIOCH. 

family of brethren. The letter, after the salutation, 
begins by repudiating the agitators who had gone 
down to Antioch. Next it states that it had been 
agreed in common to send back chosen men with 
Barnabas and Paul, who are spoken of in emphati- 
cally warm language, with indirect recognition of 
their mission as that for which they had exposed 
their lives : this was in fact a deputation from Jeru- 
salem, exactly answering to the deputation from 
Antioch to Jerusalem. Thirdly, in a fresh sentence 
the letter gives the names of the two envoys (Judas 
and Silas), and the exact purpose of their mission, 
to repeat in person what had just been recited in 
writing (ra avrd\ probably also with the inclusion of 
what comes next, or fourthly, " For it seemed good 
to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no further 
burthen save these necessary things, viz. the four 
abstinences ; from which if ye keep yourselves it 
shall be well with you. Fare ye well." 

To some points involved in this letter and the 
accompanying circumstances we must return just 
now. But first we should glance at the historical 
sequel, under the two heads of St Luke's and St 
Paul's narratives. 

Paul and Barnabas 'go down' to Antioch (the 
phrase is significant, — Jerusalem is still the central 
height). They gather together the multitude of the 
brethren (to ir\rj0o<;) and gave them the epistle 
(eirehwicav) ; a phrase which shews that, as might 



THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 73 

indeed be gathered from the terms of the salutation, 
it was to the Ecclesia at large that the letter was 
addressed. Having read it they rejoice at the en- 
couragement (Trapa/cXrjcrei) ; a vague word, it might 
seem, but an appropriate one : it expressed the 
" God speed you " (so to speak) which had been pro- 
nounced on their own work and on the conditions 
of freedom under which it had been begun. The 
effect of the letter is reinforced by the personal 
representatives of Jerusalem : Judas and Silas, them- 
selves also prophets, with much discourse encouraged 
(or exhorted, irapeKaXeaav) the brethren and stablished 
[them] {iirea-TT}pL^av). They stay some time, and then 
are dismissed by the brethren with peace and return 
to those that sent them (the anroarokov^ of the Textus 
Receptus and the Authorised Version is certainly a 
wrong reading). Meanwhile Paul and Barnabas con- 
tinue in Antioch, teaching and preaching the good 
tidings of the word of the Lord, along with many 
others also (xv. 35). 

St Peter at Antioch. 

Such is St Luke's account, a history of smooth 
water. It did not enter into his purpose to wake up 
the memories of an incident on which the Ecclesia 
had been well-nigh wrecked, but which happily had 
ended in a manner which enabled it to pursue 
its course uninjured, or rather we must suppose 
strengthened. Nothing, we may be sure, but the 



74 THE ECCLESIA OF ANTIOCH. 

conviction that the whole future of the Gentile 
Ecclesiae was bound up in the vindication of his 
own authentic Apostleship, would have induced St 
Paul to commit to paper the sad story of his conflict 
with St Peter. St Peter, it would seem, had after 
a while followed the four envoys to Antioch. Nothing 
was more natural and expedient than that he should 
visit the vigorous young community in person, and 
establish friendly relations on the spot. A personal 
visit like this, which might once have been imprudent, 
had now become expedient. At first all went well. 
He carried out completely the purpose of the Jeru- 
salem letter by associating on equal terms with the 
Gentile converts ; he u ate with them '", just as he had 
done (to the scandal of many) at Caesarea (xi. 3). 
But when certain came down from James, he withdrew 
himself in fear of them of the circumcision. This 
conduct St Paul plainly calls l ' acting a false part" 
(vTroKpLcri? Gal. ii. 1 3), pretending to be that which he 
was not : but it was shared by the rest of the Jewish 
Christians at Antioch and even at length, strange to 
say, by Barnabas. St Paul alone stood firm, and 
rebuked St Peter to his face in the presence of them 
all. To go into the various questions arising out of 
this account, as I did to a certain extent two years ago 1 , 
would be out of the question now. What specially 
concerns our own subject is that the point of principle 
really at stake was, under one aspect, the question 

1 See Juda::::; Ch) ;. . pp. 76 flf. 



THE ECCLESIA OF ANTJOCH. 75 

whether membership of the Christian Ecclesia could 
be of two orders or degrees, an inner for Jewish 
Christians only, and an outer. The position practi- 
cally taken up for a while by St Peter and his 
associates must not be confounded with the position 
taken up by the uncompromising Judaizers who had 
been repudiated in the letter from Jerusalem. There 
is not the least sign that he affected to wish to 
exclude heathen converts from baptism or most 
other Christian privileges. But he did persuade 
himself that, for the time at least, uncircumcised 
Christians should not be allowed to sit at table with 
circumcised ; in other words that they might in a 
certain sense be members of the Christian brother- 
hood but not be recognised as full members, unless 
by first becoming Jews, and accepting Jewish customs 
as binding on them. St Paul does not tell us how 
the matter ended. That was unnecessary, for all the 
subsequent history shewed that this compromise, 
the fruit of timorous and untimely prudence, must 
have quickly collapsed, and left the policy represented 
by St Paul now more firmly established than before 
St Peter's arrival. Thus the freedom of Gentile 
Christian communities was assured anew in the 
completest form. 



LECTURE V. 

The exercise of A uthority. 

St James and his position. 

We have already spent much time on the Jerusalem 
conference and letter, and its sequel. But there remain 
some points which concern our subject too closely to 
be passed over. First, about St James. This is the 
second of the three occasions on which his name 
appears in the Acts. When St Peter was released 
by the angel from prison, after the martyrdom of 
the Apostle James the brother of John, he said to the 
disciples assembled in the house of John Mark " Tell 
these things to James and to the brethren" (xii. 17). 
He must then have already been in some manner 
prominent among the disciples. As the chief among 
the Lord's own brethren, and one to whom the Lord 
vouchsafed a separate appearance after the Resurrec- 
tion (1 Cor. xv. 7), doubtless the appearance to which 
the well-known story in the Gospel according to the 
Hebrews refers (Lightfoot, Gal. 265), and, if so, at 



THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 77 

which his unbelief probably came to an end, he would 
evidently be held in a peculiar kind of respect in the 
infant Ecclesia. St Paul alone speaks of him as an 
Apostle (Gal. i. 19: and probably by implication 
1 Cor. xv. 7), and the contexts seem to me distinctly 
to exclude that looser sense of the term referred to 
before by which mere 'Apostles of Ecclesiae' were 
meant, while it is hardly less clear that he did not 
anticipate the later theory which made him to have 
been from the first one of the Twelve. It would seem 
then that, possessing as he did in an eminent degree 
the primary apostolic qualification of being a witness 
of the Lord's life, death and resurrection, he was at 
some early time after the persecution by Herod taken 
up into the place among the Twelve vacated by his 
namesake. The silence of St Luke, as compared 
with his explicitness about Matthias, may be due to 
the fact that in this instance it was no matter of 
choice, calling for all the process described in Acts i., 
but a natural result of the combination of circum- 
stances, such as might itself well be treated as a 
sufficient intimation of the Divine will. On the other 
hand no Apostleship of St James is recorded or 
implied by St Luke, though he three times mentions 
him in a way which marks him out as, to say the 
least, a leading and prominent person. But this is less 
surprising than it might otherwise be, if the promin- 
ence was due to personal circumstances, which con- 
tinued to operate after his admission to the Apostolate, 



78 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 

just as antecedently they had procured his admission 
to it. In other words, the prominence which he has 
in the Acts would not be due to his having become 
an Apostle : nay, his admission to that joint responsi- 
bility might rather tend to diminish any exclusiveness 
of prestige which he may have acquired outside the 
Apostolate, and so independently of it. 

Was then the prominence of St James due solely 
to personal qualifications and history, not to any re- 
cognised function ? That would be too much to say. 
That at the time of his death he was practically the 
ruler of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem is the least open to 
doubt among the particulars of the traditions current in 
the Second Century about him, by whatever name we 
choose to call his government ; and at least the origin 
of such a position is likely to have some connexion 
with the facts mentioned or implied by St Luke. 
The clearest fact about him attested by the New 
Testament, Acts and St Paul alike, but enormously 
exaggerated at a later time, is that he was at least 
more closely connected in sentiment with the more 
Jewish part of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem than were 
the rest of the Apostles ; and it may well be that the 
veneration in which he is said to have been held at 
the time of his death even by unbelieving Jews, had 
its roots in an early popularity which would make 
him a valuable mediator between the stiffer sort of 
Hebrew Christians and the other Apostles. Such a 
passage as that just cited from St Peter's words after 



THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 79 

his release might, taken alone, be quite sufficiently 
explained by purely personal prominence. So also 
the fact that in Gal. ii. 9 the order is "James and 
Cephas and John " might well be due to the fact that 
the adherence of James on the occasion referred to 
was even more significant than that of the other two, 
on account of his closer relations with the Jewish 
party. But the two other passages of the Acts are 
best understood as implying that he held some 
recognised office or function in connexion with the 
Ecclesia of Jerusalem : and it does not seem unlikely 
that on his admission to the Apostolate it was ar- 
ranged that, unlike the rest, he should exercise a 
definite local charge. Such a charge would of neces- 
sity become more distinct and, so to speak, monar- 
chical when the other Apostles were absent from 
Jerusalem. His own circumstances were unique, and 
the circumstances of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem were 
no less unique. A peculiar function founded on 
peculiar qualifications is what the narrative suggests. 

There is nothing in St Luke's words which bears 
out what is often said, that St James presided over 
the conference at Jerusalem. If he had, it would 
be strange that his name should not be mentioned 
separately at the beginning, where we read only that 
" the Apostles and the Elders" were gathered together. 
In the decisive speeches at the end the lead is taken 
by St Peter, the foremost of the Twelve. After 
Barnabas and Paul have ended their narrative, James 



bo THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 

takes up the word. What he says is called an answer 
{aTTeicpLOr) Ta*;a>/3o? Xeycov xv. 1 3), probably as replying 
to words uttered earlier by the more Jewish section of 
the assembly during the dispute mentioned in v. 7. 
His opening words suggest that his first appeal is to 
them, and that he makes it as one to whom they might 
be more willing to listen than to St Paul, " Brethren 
(avSpe? aSe\c/>o/), listen to me " ; he then refers to 
Peter's exposition, calling him not only by his original 
name, but by the strictly Hebrew form of it, Symeon, 
as though to bespeak their goodwill for what Peter 
had said. Then again the words which begin his 
conclusion, "Wherefore my judgement is," cannot 
reasonably be understood as an authoritative judg- 
ment pronounced by himself independently: the 
whole context and what is said in v. 22 about the 
actual decision makes that interpretation morally 
impossible. The sense is doubtless " I for my part 1 
judge," "this is my vote" as we should say. The 
point then is that, guardian though he was of the 
honour of Israel in the Ecclesia, he here throws his 
voice on the side of liberty. It is no objection to 
this view that he says simply eyco not /cdyoo : owing 
to his mention of the four abstinences his proposal 
could not be simply identical with that of St Peter. 

1 Wetstein in toe. quotes Thuc. iv. 16 for a still weaker ws £yu> Kplvu, 
explained by the scholiast as ws 4y<a vo/jUfa, and the same use of Kpivta 
occurs elsewhere in the Acts (xiii. 46; xvi. 15; xxvi. 8): here the sense 
seems to be intermediate. Cf. the old latin version of Irenseus cont. 
Uaer. ill. xii. 14 'Ego secundum me iudico.' 



THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. Zi 

We saw just now that he is not named at the 
gathering of the assembly. It is just the same 
afterwards : the decision is said to be made by the 
Apostles and the Elders with the whole Ecclesia ; the 
letter proceeds from the Apostles and the elder 
brethren : apart then from these two classes he can 
hardly have exercised authority in this matter. 

The Authority of the Jerusalem Elders and of 
the Twelve. 

When we pass from St James to the Apostles and 
Elders, the question arises, " What kind of authority 
they here put forth over the brethren in Antioch and 
the surrounding region ? " The answer cannot be a 
simple one. The letter itself at once implies an 
authority, and betrays an unwillingness to make a 
display of it In the forefront are set anxious friend- 
liness, courteous approval. Whatever is in any sense 
imperative comes after this and subsidiary to it, and 
is set forth as what had seemed good " to the Holy 
Spirit and to us " the human authority, whatever it be, 
being as it were appended to that which is presumed 
to be Divine. Further, the semblance of a command 
is softened off at the end into a counsel ; " from which 
if ye keep yourselves it shall be well with you." 

So again in the next chapter (xvi. 4) the phrase 
used, "the decrees which had been ordained of the 
Apostles and Elders", seems to refer back, 'the 
h. e. 6 



82 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 

decrees' (Soyfjuara) to the twice repeated eho^ev of 
xv. 22, 25, * ordained' (/ceKpcfjueva) to St James's Kptvco 
in xv. 19 1 . AojfMa in Greek (properly only what 
seems, or seems good) is one of those curiously 
elastic words which vary in sharpness of meaning 
according to the persons to whom a thing is said 
to seem good, and to the other circumstances of 
the case. The dogma of an emperor or a legislative 
assembly or the Amphictyonic council is a decree, 
the dogma of a philosopher is what seems to him 
to be true ; and between these extremes are various 
shades of meaning. Here the probable sense is 
nearly what we should call a ' resolution ', as passed 
by any deliberative body, not in form imperative but 
intended to have a binding force. The New Testa- 
ment is not poor of words expressive of command, 
evreXkofiau, iirvraaaw^ irpocrracrcKD, SiaTaacrco, SiaareX- 
Xoficu and their derivatives, to say nothing of rceXevo) 
and irapayyeWco : yet none of them is used. It was 
in truth a delicate and difficult position, even after 
the happy decision of the assembly. The independ- 
ence of the Ecclesia of Antioch had to be respected, 
and yet not in such a way as to encourage disregard 
either of the great mother Ecclesia, or of the Lord's 
own Apostles, or of the unity of the whole Christian 
body. Accordingly we do not find a word of a hint 

1 In the later reference (xxi. 25) we have no stronger term than 
air€(TTei\aixev (or eireaTeiKaixev) Kplpav^es : cf. St James's Kpivoj...eirt.(rTe?\cu 
(xv. 19 f.). 



THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 83 

that the Antiochians would have done better to get 
sanction from Jerusalem before plunging into such 
grave responsibilities. But along with the cordial 
concurrence in the release of Gentile converts from 
legal requirements there goes a strong expression of 
opinion, more than advice and less than a command, 
respecting certain salutary restraints. A certain 
authority is thus implicitly claimed. There is no 
evidence that it was more than a moral authority ; 
but that did not make it less real. 

The bases of authority differ for the two bodies 
united in writing to Antioch, the Elders and the 
Apostles. The Elders are to all appearance the local 
elders of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem. It is impossible 
that, as such, they could claim any authority properly 
so called over the Ecclesia of Antioch. But they had 
a large voice, backed as they were by the great body 
of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem, in saying whether the 
Ecclesia of Jerusalem would accept the brethren at 
Antioch, and specially the Gentile converts among 
them, as true brethren of their own, and true disciples 
of Jesus Christ. There is no making of formal con- 
ditions of fellowship, but the Elders, as taking the 
lead in making so great a concession on the part of 
Jerusalem, might well feel that they had a right to 
expect that the four restraints which had been set 
forth would be accepted. Such a deference on the 
part of Antioch would be the more proper since Paul 

6—2 



84 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 

and Barnabas, the representatives of Antioch, had 
evidently accepted the resolution as a whole (see 
their conduct in xvi. 4). 

The authority of the Apostles was of a different 
kind. There is indeed, as we have seen, no trace in 
Scripture of a formal commission of authority for 
government from Christ Himself. Their commission 
was to be witnesses of Himself, and to bear that witness 
by preaching and by healing. But it is inconceivable 
that the moral authority with which they were thus 
clothed, and the uniqueness of their position and 
personal qualifications, should not in all these years 
have been accumulating upon them by the spontaneous 
homage of the Christians of Judaea an ill-defined but 
lofty authority in matters of government and adminis- 
tration ; of which indeed we have already had an 
instance in the laying of the price of the sold proper- 
ties at their feet. What is not so easy to find out is 
the extent to which an apostolic authority of this 
kind is likely to have been felt and acknowledged 
beyond the limits of the Holy Land. On the one 
hand all Christian discipleship, wherever it sprang up, 
must have come directly or indirectly from the central 
community at Jerusalem, and it is difficult to see any 
form the Gospel could take in transmission in which 
the place of the still living Apostles would not be a 
primary one. On the other hand we cannot forget 
that it was of James and Peter and John that St Paul 
wrote those guarded but far-reaching words (Gal. ii. 6) 



THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. S5 

"but from those who were reputed to be somewhat — 
(of whatsoever sort {oiroloi) they were, it maketh no 
matter to me : God accepteth not a man's person) 
they, I say, who were of repute imparted nothing (or 
nothing farther) to me (£/jloI ovSev irpoaaveOevroy ': words 
which shew that with all his unfailing anxiety to have 
the concurrence of the Twelve, and not of them only 
but of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem at large, he was not 
prepared to obey if the Twelve had insisted on the 
requirement of circumcision and the Law. Hence in 
the letter sent to Antioch the authority even of the 
Apostles, notwithstanding the fact that unlike the 
Jerusalem elders they exercised a function towards 
all Christians, was moral rather than formal ; a claim 
to deference rather than a right to be obeyed. 

The Twelve and the Gentiles. 

In this connexion there is special force in that 
familiar statement by St Paul in the context just 
referred to (Gal. ii. 7-12), "when they saw that I had 
been entrusted with the Gospel of the uncircumcision, 
even as Peter with (a Gospel) of the circumcision 
(IIeT/009 t?)? TreptTo^?, not to t^?), for He that wrought 
by Peter (that seems to be the sense of ivepyrfo-as 
Uerpcp, rather than either " in Peter " or " for Peter ") 
unto an Apostleship (no tyjv) of the circumcision (ny? 
irepLTo^ris:) wrought by me also unto (or for, ek) the 
Gentiles : — and when they perceived (yvovre?) the 
grace that was given unto me, James and Cephas and 



86 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 

John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me 
and Barnabas right hands of fellowship (Koivoavia^)^ 
that we (should be, or should go ; no verb) unto the 
Gentiles, and themselves unto the circumcision : only 
they would that we should remember the poor (i.e. 
poor Christians of Palestine); which I also for this 
very reason took pains to do." 

Our familiarity with the idea of St Paul as the 
Apostle of the Gentiles makes us in reading slide over 
this arrangement as though it were the obvious thing 
to be done. In one sense it was : but what is its relation 
to the universal mission of the Twelve? Was it indeed 
to the circumcision only that our Lord had appointed 
them to bear witness of Himself by word and act ? It 
is difficult to think so when we read of words which 
He spoke between the Resurrection and the Ascen- 
sion. Those other words about the twelve thrones, 
and about not having gone through the cities of 
Israel, doubtless remained, not abrogated. But in 
some sense or other the twelve Apostles were surely 
to be for the Gentiles as well as for the old Israel ; 
not merely through the Ecclesia which was founded 
on them, but in themselves. They had a relation to 
the ideal twelve tribes of the new Israel as well as to 
those of the old, which long before the time of the 
Christian era had become hardly less ideal. 

Here comes in the purely historical question. Had 
the Twelve or any of them preached beyond the limits 
of Palestine up to this time ? High authorities give 



THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 87 

this extension to St Luke's simple if vague words 
about St Peter after his deliverance from prison, how 
he "went out (i.e. out of John Mark's house at Jeru- 
salem) and went his way unto another place" (xii. 17). 
About twelve years are said to have then elapsed 
since the Ascension, and reference is made to one of 
the traditions current in the Second Century, to the 
effect that our Lord had bidden the Apostles go forth 
into the world after twelve years. There is, however, 
nothing connected with the tradition which gives it 
substantially more weight than the other fictions 
about the Apostles which soon flourished luxuriantly 
and in endless contradictions to each other. The 
omission of such a cardinal event from St Luke's 
narrative is, I think, inconceivable ; and his whole 
story of the doings of the Ecclesia of Antioch and 
St Paul's first mission becomes unintelligible if 
similar missionary journeys of Apostles had preceded. 
We must, I think, conclude that up to the date of the 
great conference the Twelve had not believed them- 
selves to have received any clear Divine intimation 
that the time was come for them to go forth in person 
among the nations. 

But now, independently of any action on their 
own part, the whole horizon was changed by the 
action of the Ecclesia of Antioch and the labours of 
Paul and Barnabas. It was no merely human series 
of acts which came before them for recognition. 
They doubtless accepted the mission from Antioch 



88 THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 

as proceeding in the first instance from the Holy 
Spirit speaking by the mouth of prophets, and as 
subsequently sanctioned from heaven by the signs 
and wonders which Paul and Barnabas were enabled 
to work. Here then at last the Divine monition 
to themselves had come, though probably in an 
unexpected form. In the person of St Paul, long 
since welcomed by themselves as a fellow-worker, 
God had now raised up a mighty herald of the Gospel 
for the Gentiles. He was no delegate of theirs : his 
commission was direct: but by recognising him as 
specially called to do apostolic work among the 
Gentiles, they were enabled to feel that by agreement 
and fellowship with him they were in effect carrying 
out through him that extension of their sphere which 
it is incredible that they should ever have dismissed 
from their minds ; and meanwhile they were them- 
selves able without misgiving to continue their work 
in the narrower sphere in which they had already 
laboured so long. Whether this limitation was at 
the time contemplated as permanent or as temporary, 
we have of course no means of knowing : but indeed 
there was no need to decide ; in the future, no less 
than in the present, the needful guidance was to be 
looked for from heaven. In any case this agreement 
with St Paul, made in private conference, must be 
kept in mind when we are reading the epistle to 
Antioch which was agreed to and written so shortly 
after. They remarkably supplement each other. On 



THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY, 89 

the one hand the Twelve could not have so written 
had they meant henceforth to hold themselves dis- 
charged from every kind of responsibility towards 
Gentile Christians generally : on the other the agree- 
ment with St Paul and St Barnabas excluded them 
for the present from working personally among the 
Gentiles. 

It must be noticed that the limit drawn is 
religious, not geographical : it is between the circum- 
cision and the Gentiles, not between the land of Israel 
and Gentile lands. Thus St James was still acting 
quite according to the agreement when, while re- 
maining at the head of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem, 
he wrote an Epistle to Jewish Christians of the 
Dispersion. But we hear nothing of evangelistic 
journeys by the Twelve for preaching to the Jews of 
heathen cities ; and it is most unlikely that any such 
were made. The distribution of fields of work involved 
in the agreement itself passed away in due time by the 
force of circumstances: we know of at least three of the 
Twelve who can be shown on trustworthy evidence to 
have laboured eventually in heathen lands. But that 
lies outside the Acts. 

It is worthy of notice that we have now reached 
the last appearance of the Apostles collectively, or 
of any one of them except St James, in St Luke's 
narrative. His remaining chapters are wholly silent 
about them. By this time the work which most 
characteristically belonged to them, their special con- 



9>o THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 

tribution to the building up of the Ecclesia, though 
not yet ended, was not henceforth to present new 
features. What remained of their work in Palestine 
would be a continuation of such work as St Luke 
had already described. On them the Ecclesia of 
the mother city had been built. 

The government of tJie Ecclesia of Antioch. 

One other supplementary observation should be 
made before we leave this fifteenth chapter. In all 
that we read there and previously about the young 
Ecclesia of Antioch we learn absolutely nothing about 
its government or administration. The prophets and 
teachers have, as such, nothing to do with functions of 
this kind. Doubtless a man like Barnabas, coming as 
an envoy of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem (so, not simply 
of the Apostles, xi. 22) and shewing such sympathy 
with the local conditions of things, would acquire by 
the mere force of circumstances a considerable moral 
authority ; and this would presently be shared with 
St Paul, when he too had come out of his Cilician retire- 
ment. Of course by its very nature this position was 
temporary as well as informal. Strange to say, we 
hear nothing about Elders. Since we know that the 
Ecclesia of Jerusalem had long had Elders, and St Paul 
on returning from his first journey in Asia Minor had 
appointed Elders for each local Ecclesia, it is hardly 
credible that they were wanting at Antioch, to say 
nothing of the influence of the precedent of the great 



THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY. 91 

Jewish population. But in the Acts we hear only of 
11 the brethren " (xv. 1, 32, 33) or "the disciples " (xi. 26, 
29; xiv. 28) or "the multitude'' (xv. 30) or "the ec- 
clesia * (xi. 26 ; xiii. 1 ; xiv. 27). Evidently at this 
time the general body of disciples at Antioch must 
have taken at least a large share in the acts of the 
Christian community. 



LECTURE VI. 

St Paul at Ephesus. 

The later history of the resolutions of the conference. 

The rest of the Acts need not occupy us long. 
After certain days Paul said unto Barnabas " Let us 
return now and visit the brethren in every city 
wherein we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see 
how they fare." This journey then proceeded from 
no act of the Ecclesia of Antioch nor (so far as 
appears) from a special Divine monition. It was 
apparently in intention, and certainly as regards the 
first part of it, merely supplementary to the former 
journey. As we know, St Paul and Barnabas had a 
division of opinion, and separated, Paul taking Silas, 
one of the envoys of the Ecclesia of Jerusalem, and 
himself a prophet. At Lystra a still more important 
fellow-labourer was added to his company in the 
person of Timothy, whom for prudential reasons he 
circumcised; doubtless because, though hitherto form- 



ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 93 

ally outside the old covenant, he had been from child- 
hood to all intents and purposes a Jew 1 . As they went 
through the cities they delivered to them (masculine : 
to the disciples there) the resolutions which had been 
decided on (rd Soyfiara rd fce/cpi/jbeva) by the Apostles 
and Elders that were at Jerusalem. The region through 
which they were now travelling had nothing to do 
with the provinces associated with Antioch, viz. 
Syria and Cilicia, to which the Jerusalem letter had 
been addressed. But the conversions which had taken 
place in that very region formed the first link in the 
chain of circumstances which led to the writing of the 
letter : and if the Ecclesia of Antioch were to accept 
loyally the restraints on neophytes imposed by the 
letter, it was impossible that their missionary, on now 
at once revisiting the scene of his mission, should fail 
to press these requirements upon his converts. But 
(with the exception of an allusion by St James or 
the Jerusalem Elders in xxi. 25) this is the last 
that we hear of these requirements in the Acts, 
and St Paul in his Epistles makes no allusion to them 
directly or indirectly. It is of course possible that 
St Luke's silence on this point for the rest of this 
journey, and for all the subsequent journeyings, was 
not intended to be expressive. He may have wished 
the single instance given at the outset to be under- 
stood as carried on through the rest of his narrative. 
But the manner in which the one statement is made 

1 See Judaistic Christianity, pp. 84 ft 



94 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 

does not suggest such an extension ; nor is it likely 
that St Luke would have failed to repeat it for at 
least one region now first entered on, had he wished 
it to be carried forward by his readers. But St Paul's 
own silence is more significant still. The truth 
probably is that he accepted the four restraints 
appended to the main purpose of the letter, but did 
not really care for them, preferring to seek the same 
ends by other means ; and so that he did not attempt 
to enforce them with respect to Christian converts 
for which the Ecclesia of Antioch was in no sense 
responsible ; having perhaps already found reason in 
Lycaonia to doubt their expediency, though, faithful 
to his trust, he introduced them there. At all events 
the great liberative measure to which the Apostles 
joined with the Elders and Ecclesia of Jerusalem in 
setting their hands stood fast, and determined the 
character of by far the greater part of the new 
Ecclesia, while these petty adjuncts to it, having 
served their purpose, dropped away, though many in 
ancient, and even in modern times, have tried to 
persuade themselves that they are still binding on 
all Christians. 

The next verse to that which we have no\y been 
examining tells us simply that "the Ecclesiae (i.e. 
the congregations of the Lycaonian region) were 
strengthened (or solidified, ecrrepeovvro) by their faith, 
and multiplied in number daily" (xvi. 5). This is 



ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 95 

the last time that the word eicKkrjaia is used by 
St Luke, except for that of Jerusalem and in the 
peculiar case of the Ephesian Elders at Miletus. 

How St Paul and his companions came to extend 
their journey beyond Lycaonia, we are not told. 
When they had passed through Phrygia and Galatia 
and reached Alexandria Troas the vision of the 
Macedonian beckoned them across the Hellespont, 
and so they entered Europe. As everyone will 
remember, the chief places of their preaching were 
Philippi, Thessalonica, Bercea, Athens, Corinth. Not 
a word here of Ecclesiae, for the Christian communi- 
ties were only in their earliest stage of existence. 

The founding of the Ecclesia of Ephesus. 

On his way back to the east St Paul diverged 
rapidly from his course to snatch a visit to Ephesus, 
where he dropped Priscilla and Aquila, and there he 
began to argue with the Jews in the synagogue, but 
quickly took leave. If, as the following narratives sug- 
gest, this was the beginning of Ephesian Christianity, 
it is much to be remembered as a bo?iafide instance of 
a great central capital which could legitimately claim 
an Apostle as the founder of its Christian community. 
It will be remembered that shortly after leaving 
Lycaonia, Paul and his friends are said to have been 
"hindered by the Holy Spirit from speaking the 
word in Asia," i.e. Proconsular Asia ; which implies 
that personally they (or Paul) had been desiring to 



96 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 

preach there, and doubtless specially in Ephesus. 
The deferred wish was now to be fulfilled, though 
still, so to speak, only in a representative manner, for 
there was no time for effectual preaching. Promising 
to return if God will, St Paul hurries across the 
Mediterranean to Caesarea, goes up to Jerusalem and 
greets the Ecclesia there (here simply called rrjv eV 
KXrjalav, Jerusalem itself being indicated only by the 
word avafias ' goes up ? ), and then returns to Antioch 
for some time ; he sets out afresh through Phrygia and 
Galatia, Establishing all the disciples" made on his 
last journey, and so at last reaches Ephesus in good 
earnest and makes a long stay, in which he becomes 
the founder of Christian Ephesus in very deed. 

One early incident of this stay is mentioned which 
specially concerns us. After St Paul had been 
preaching and arguing in the synagogue for the space 
of three months, when at length some of the Jews 
become hardened in disbelief and publicly revile 
'the Way/ he forms a separate congregation of the 
disciples, probably Jewish Christians and Gentile 
Christians alike, and carries on his public disputations 
in what was probably a neutral building, the ayoXy] 
or ' lecture hall ' of Tyrannus. 

The period of from two to three years then spent 
at Ephesus and in the surrounding region was full of 
dangers and troubles, of which the Epistles alone 
afford us some glimpses. They mark St Paul's 
anxiety to build up carefully and solidly the Ecclesiae 



ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 97 

of the most important region of that great peninsula 
now called Asia Minor, which he had in a manner 
made peculiarly his own, and which from childhood 
must have had a special interest for him from the 
proximity of Tarsus to the Cilician Gates, the pass by 
which the greater part of the peninsula was entered 
from the south. The last incident of that period 
mentioned by St Luke brings us face to face with 
another sort of Ecclesia from those whose origin we 
have been tracing. He employs the word ifCKXrjaia 
not only for the regular assembly of the Ephesian 
people (xix. 39), but, by a very unusual way of 
speaking, for the tumultuous gathering on behalf of 
the Ephesian goddess (xix. 32, 41). Before that last 
incident St Paul had meditated a fresh journey of 
great length, first a visit to the European Christian 
communities founded by him on his former westward 
journey, then to Jerusalem once more, where he 
wished to find himself at Pentecost, the great national 
festival, and lastly to Rome (xix. 21). 

St Paul's discourse to the Ephesian Elders at 

Miletus. 

The incidents of the journey, with one important 
exception, do not concern our purpose. Anxiety not 
to spend time in Proconsular Asia made St Paul 
refrain from going back to Ephesus on his way to 
Palestine. But, touching at Miletus, he thence, we 
are told, "sent to Ephesus and called to him the 

h. e. 7 



98 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 

Elders of the Ecclesia." St Luke speaks of them 
simply thus, as though no further explanation were 
needed. We have seen already how St Paul insti- 
tuted an administration by Elders in the smaller 
Ecclesiae which he founded in Lycaonia, and it is but 
natural to conclude that he would pursue the same 
plan elsewhere. Whether the institution took place 
at an early date in his long stay (so that they would 
be acting along with and under him), or took place 
only on his departure, as seems best to suit the 
former precedent, we have no means of knowing. 
Superficially it might seem as if the early verses 
of his address favoured the first mentioned view, 
but in reality they are neutral, what is there said 
of the Elders' knowledge of St Paul's acts and 
teaching from the day of his arrival being, to say 
the least, addressed to them in their character of 
Christian disciples, not of Christian Elders. More 
is contained in xx. 28, partly about the Elders of 
the Ecclesia, partly about the Ecclesia itself. " Take 
heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the 
Holy Spirit set you as liriGKoirov^r 

First, how are we to understand this last word ? 
No one, I suppose, doubts now that the persons 
meant are those first mentioned as " Elders of the 
Ecclesia/' Have we then here a second title? The 
only tangible reasons for thinking so (apart from 
certain passages in Philippians and the Pastoral 
Epistles, which must presently be considered) are that 



ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 99 

in the Second Century the word was certainly used as 
a title, though for a different office ; and that it was 
already in various use as a title in the Greek world. 
But against this we must set the fact that both in the 
Bible (LXX., Apocrypha, and the New Testament 
itself, 1 Pet. ii. 25) and in other literature (including 
Philo) it retains its common etymological or descrip- 
tive meaning ' overseer ', and this meaning alone gives 
a clear sense here. The best rendering would I 
think be, "in which the Holy Spirit set you to have 
oversight", the force being distinctly predicative. We 
shall have, as I said just now, to consider the word 
again in connexion with Philippians and the Pastoral 
Epistles, but for the present we had better remain 
at Miletus or rather Ephesus. 

Secondly, the Elders are said to have been set 
in the flock of Ephesus to have oversight of it by the 
Holy Spirit. Neither here nor anywhere else in the 
address is there any indication that St Paul himself 
had had anything to do with their appointment, 
the contrast in this to the Pastoral Epistles being 
very remarkable. It is no doubt conceivable that he 
might describe such an act of his own as coming 
from the Holy Spirit: but apart from prophetic 
monitions, of which there is no trace here, it would 
be hard to find another example 1 . 

Again, it is conceivable that this language might 
be used without any reference to the mode of ap- 

1 1 Cor. vii. 40 is obviously quite different. 

7—2 



ioo ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 

pointment, the Holy Spirit being regarded simply as, 
so to speak, the author of all order. 

But the manner in which the Holy Spirit is 
elsewhere associated with joint acts, acts involving 
fellowship, suggests that here the appointment came 
from the Ecclesia itself. Doubtless, as far as we can 
tell, such was not the case in those Lycaonian com- 
munities where (outside of Palestine) we first read 
of the appointment of Elders. But the case of 
comparatively small communities, recently formed 
and rapidly visited, might well induce St Paul in the 
first instance to start them with Elders of his own 
choice : while in such a capital as Ephesus, having 
probably already made a long stay there, he might 
well think the Ecclesia ripe for the responsibility. 
In so doing he would be practically following the 
precedent set at Jerusalem in the case of the Seven 
(vi. 3-6). In that case the appointment of the Seven 
was sealed, so to speak, by the Apostles praying and 
laying hands of blessing on the Seven ; and so it 
may well have been here. 

Thirdly, the function of the Elders is described 

in pastoral language ( c take heed to... the flock,' ' tend/ 

1 wolves... not sparing the flock'). Such language, as 

we might expect, was probably not unknown as 

applied to Jewish elders. Apparently 1 (though not 

1 See the passages in Levy and Fleischer's Lex. iv. 120 f. The 
Aramaic verb (used only for men) is DJH3, the substantive DJ")?^ the 
sense like that of the biblical HIT^ including the sense of tending or 
leading and feeding. 



ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 101 

quite clearly) it is applied in the Talmud to them 
as well as to other guides and rulers. But it was 
impossible that this aspect of the office should not 
assume greater weight, under the circumstances of 
a Christian Ecclesia. The unique redemption to 
which the Ecclesia owed its existence involved the 
deepening and enlarging of every responsibility, and 
the filling out what might have been mere adminis- 
tration with spiritual aims and forces. But the precise 
form which the work of the Elders was to take is 
not clearly expressed. The side of shepherding most 
expressed by 'tending' (jroLfxaivoy) is government and 
guidance rather than feeding 1 ; nor is there any other 
distinct reference to teaching, the two imperatives 
being " take heed to yourselves and to the flock," and 
" watch ye" or "be wakeful" (ryprjyopelre xx. 31), 
spoken with reference to the double danger of grievous 
wolves from without, and men speaking perverse 
things from within. But this * watching' does in- 
directly seem to involve teaching, public or private, 
in virtue of the words which follow, "remembering 
that for a space of three years night and day I ceased 
not to admonish each one," the practical form taken 
by the Apostle's vigilance being thus recalled to 
mind as needing to be in some way carried on by 
themselves. Moreover it is hard to see how the 
work of tending and protection could be performed 

1 See John xxi. 16 where 'tending' (Troi/jLcuve) is contrasted with 
'feeding ' (/36<r/ce) both in the preceding and in the following verse. 



io2 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 

without teaching, which indeed would itself be a 
necessary part of the daily life of a Christian, as of a 
Jewish community ; and it does not appear by whom 
it was to be carried on mainly and regularly if not by 
the' Elders, or at least by some of them. No other 
office in the Ecclesia of Ephesus is referred to in 
the address. 

Next for the Ecclesia of Ephesus itself. 

Early in the term we had occasion to notice 
the significance of this phrase " the Ecclesia of God 
which He purchased by the blood of His own," as 
joining on the new society of Christ's disciples to the 
ancient Ecclesia of Israel, and marking how the idea of 
the sacrificial redemption wrought by the Crucified 
Messiah, succeeding to the Paschal redemption of 
the Exodus, was bound up in the idea of the Christian 
Ecclesia. Here we evidently are carried into a loftier 
region than any previous use of the word Ecclesia in 
the Acts would obviously point to. This language 
was but natural, since the words then spoken were 
then supposed to be last words. They are part of 
St Paul's solemn farewell to the cherished Ecclesia 
of his own founding. He begins with the actual 
circumstances of the moment, the local Ephesian com- 
munity, which was the flock committed to the Ephesian 
Elders, and then goes on to say that that little flock 
had a right to believe itself to be the Ecclesia of God 
which He had purchased to be His own possession 
at so unspeakable a price. Of course in strictness 



ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 103 

the words belong only to the one universal Christian 
Ecclesia : but here they are transferred to the indi- 
vidual Ecclesia of Ephesus, which alone these Elders 
were charged to shepherd. In the Epistles we shall 
find similar investment of parts of the universal 
Ecclesia with the high attributes of the whole. This 
transference is no mere figure of speech. Each 
partial society is set forth as having a unity of its 
own, and being itself a body made up of many 
members has therefore a corporate life of its own : 
and yet these attributes could not be ascribed to it as 
an absolutely independent and as it were insular 
society : they belong to it only as a representative 
member of the great whole 1 . 

In xx. 32, which follows the calling to mind of 
St Paul's own former admonitions, he commends the 
Elders "to the Lord and to the word of His grace", 
just as he and Barnabas, on leaving the Lycaonian 
churches with their newly appointed Elders, had 
commended them to 'the Lord on whom they had 
believed' (xiv. 23). "The word of His grace" here 
is what is called in v. 24 " the Gospel of the grace of 
God ", doubtless with special reference to the grace 
by which Gentiles were admitted into covenant with 
God. Firm adherence to that Gospel would be the 

1 The phrase ' Ecclesia of God,' which we find here, adopted and 
adapted as we have seen from the Old Testament, has a similar local 
reference at the head of both the Epistles to the Corinthians as also in 
1 Tim. iii. 5, not to speak of 1 Cor. x. 32 ; xi. 22, where, as we shall 
see [p. 117], the phrase appears to have a double reference. 



104 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 

most essential principle to guide them, after his 
departure, in their faith in God. 

Then he adds words which define for the future 
the two provinces of activity for the Ecclesia, its 
action within and its action without, 'building up' 
and ' enlargement.' The word of God's grace, he says, 
is indeed able 1 to build up 2 , to build up the Ecclesia 
and each individual member thereof within (cf. ix. 31), 
and likewise to bestow on those who had it not 
already the inheritance 3 among all the sanctified, all 
the saints of the covenant. 

His last words are a gentle and disguised warning, 
again with reference to his own practice, against the 
coveting of earthly good things, and in favour of 
earning by personal labour not only the supply of 
personal needs but the means of helping those who 
have not themselves the strength to labour. These 
are words that might well be addressed to the whole 
Ecclesia : but there is no turn of language to indicate 
a change from the address to the elders ; and various 
passages in the Epistles confirm the prima facie im- 
pression that it is to them in the first instance that 
the warning is addressed. 

He ends with the saying of the Lord Jesus, or 
(it may be) the summing up of many words of His, 
" Happy is it rather to give than to receive.'' 

1 t$ 8wafi&(p assuredly goes, as the Greek suggests, with Xdycp, not 
with Kvpiip (or de$). 

2 No accusative, that the reference may be perfectly general. 

3 See especially xxvi. 18 ; Eph. i. 18 ; Col. i. 12. 



ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 105 

St Paul's reception at Jerusalem and at Rome. 

We may pass over the journey to Jerusalem with 
all its warnings of danger. At Jerusalem Paul and 
his company were joyfully received by " the brethren " 
however widely or narrowly the term should be 
limited in this context. Next day they went in to 
James, and all the Elders were present. Of the other 
Apostles we hear nothing. In all probability they 
were in some other part of Palestine. James clearly 
here has an authoritative position. The presence of 
all the Elders shews that the visit was a formal one, a 
visit to the recognised authorities of the Ecclesia of 
Jerusalem, and the primary recipient is James, the 
elders being only spoken of as present. On the other 
hand not a word is distinctly said of any act or say- 
ing of James separately. After St Paul has finished 
his narrative, " they " (we are told, with a vague in- 
clusive plural) "glorified God and said to him... (xxi. 
20)." Not improbably James was the spokesman : 
but if so, he spoke the mind of the rest. Deeply 
interesting as this address was, the only point which 
concerns us is the final reference to the letter sent to 
Antioch. " But as touching the Gentiles which have 
believed, we ourselves {r^els;) sent (or wrote, or en- 
joined) judging that they should beware of what is 
offered to idols, etc/' This is said in marked contrast 
to the suggestion that St Paul should manifest by his 
own example his loyalty to the Law in the case of 



106 ST PAUL AT EPHESUS. 

born Jews. It was in effect saying that his different 
teaching respecting Gentiles was what they of Jeru- 
salem could not condemn, seeing they had themselves 
sanctioned for the Gentiles only certain definite 
restraints which did not involve obedience to the 
Law. This accounts for the general form 'the 
Gentiles which have believed \ To refer to Antioch 
and Syria and Cilicia would have been irrelevant; 
and moreover the regions actually addressed were 
the only regions which at the time of the letter con- 
tained definitely formed Ecclesiae. 

This is practically the end of the evidence de- 
ducible from the Acts. After this one scene on the 
second day at Jerusalem, James and the Elders 
disappear from view, as the other Apostles had 
disappeared long before. All that happened at 
Jerusalem, at Caesarea, and on the voyage to Rome 
lies outside our subject. We hear of ' brethren ' at 
Puteoli and at Rome, but the word Ecclesia is not 
used. The breach with the unbelieving Jews at 
Rome recalls that at the Pisidian Antioch, and ends 
with a similar setting forth of the Gentile reception of 
the Gospel, making up for the Jewish hardness of 
heart. Beginning at Jerusalem, the centre of ancient 
Israel and the home of the first Christian Ecclesia, the 
book points forward to a time when the centre of the 
heathen world will as such be for a time the centre of 
the Ecclesia of God. 



LECTURE VII. 

The ' Ecclesia 9 in the Epistles. 

The uses of the word. 

THUS far we have followed St Luke's narrative, 
with scarcely any divergence into the illustrative 
matter to be found in the Epistles. The Epistles 
however contain much important evidence of various 
kinds, while they also sometimes fail us in respect of 
information which we perhaps might have expected 
to find, and certainly should be glad to find. Much 
of the evidence will be best considered under the 
several Epistles successively : but, in beginning with 
the uses of the word Ecclesia itself, we shall find it 
clearer to take them in groups. 

Everyone must have noticed St Paul's fondness 
for adding rov deov to etcfcXrjaia, " the Ecclesia (or 
Ecclesiae) of God ". We saw just now the significance 
of the phrase in the adaptation of Ps. lxxiv. 2 by 
St Paul in addressing the Ephesian elders, as claiming 
for the community of Christians the prerogatives of 



io8 THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 

God's ancient Ecclesia. With the exception however 
of two places in I Tim. (iii. 5, 15), where the old name 
is used with a special force derived from the context, 
this name is confined to St Paul's earlier epistles, the 
two to the Thessalonians, the two to the Corinthians, 
and Galatians. It is very striking that at this time, 
when his antagonism to the Judaizers was at its hottest, 
he never for a moment set a new Ecclesia against 
the old, an Ecclesia of Jesus or even an Ecclesia of 
the Christ against the Ecclesia of God, but implicitly 
taught his heathen converts to believe that the body 
into which they had been baptized was itself the 
Ecclesia of God. This addition of rov deov occurs in 
several of the groups of passages. Naturally, and 
with special force, it stands in two out of three of the 
places in which the original Ecclesia of Judaea is 
meant, and is spoken of as the object of St Paul's 
persecution. But more significant is the application 
to single Ecclesiae (the various Ecclesiae of Judaea 
1 Thes. ii. 14; or Corinth 1 Cor. i. 2 ; 2 Cor. i. 1); or 
to the sum total of all separate Ecclesiae (2 Thes. i. 4; 
1 Cor. xi. 16); or lastly to the one universal Ecclesia 
as represented in a local Ecclesia (1 Cor. x. 32; xi. 
22). 

On the other hand, that second aspect oi the 
Ecclesia of God under the new Covenant, by which it 
is also the Ecclesia of Christ (as He Himself said " I 
will build my Ecclesia") is likewise reflected in the 
Epistles. The most obvious instances are the two 



THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 109 

passages in which the Ecclesiae of Judaea are referred 
to. "Ye, brethren," St Paul writes to the Thessa- 
lonians (1 Thes. ii. 14) " became imitators of the 
Ecclesiae of God which are in Judaea in Christ Jesus " 
(viz. by suffering like them for conscience sake). 
They were Ecclesiae of God, but their distinguishing 
feature was that they were " in Christ Jesus ", having 
their existence in Jesus as Messiah. It is as though 
he shrank from altogether refusing the name ' Ecclesiae 
of God ' to the various purely Jewish communities 
throughout the Holy Land. The next verses (1 Thes. 
ii. 15, 16) contain the most vehement of all St Paul's 
language against the Jews: but these are the individual 
men, the perverse generation ; and for their misdeeds 
the Jewish Ecclesia would not necessarily as yet be 
responsible, the nation's final refusal of its Messiah 
not having yet come. But, apart from this possible 
or even probable latent distinction, the Christian 
Ecclesiae of God would be emphatically Ecclesiae of 
God in Christ Jesus, He in His glorification being the 
fundamental bond of Christian fellowship. The other 
passage which mentions these Judaean Ecclesiae is 
Gal. i. 22, "and I continued unknown to the Ecclesiae 
of Judaea that are in Christ ": the phrase here is 
briefer, but the added rah ev XpccrrS gives the char- 
acteristic touch. Echoes of these two clear passages 
occur with reference to other Ecclesiae. That of the 
Thessalonians is in both Epistles said to be " in God 
the (or our) Father and the Lord Jesus Christ ". The 



no THE 'ECCLESIA 1 IN THE EPISTLES. 

men of Corinth are said to be u hallowed in Christ 
Jesus" (i.e. brought into the state of 'saints' in Him). 
The men of Philippi " saints in Christ Jesus ". The 
men of Ephesus " saints and faithful in Christ Jesus " ; 
and so the men of Colossae " saints and faithful bre- 
thren in Christ y \ And for the men of Rome also 
there is the analogous statement (i. 6) " among whom 
are ye also, called of Jesus Christ." 

With these forms of speech we may probably 
associate the difficult and unique phrase of Rom. 
xvi. 16, " All the Ecclesiae of the Christ salute you." 
This is the one place in the New Testament, apart 
from our Lord's words to Peter, where we read of 
" Ecclesiae of Christ" (or "of the Christ"), not "of 
God " : for the singular number we have no example. 
The sense which first suggests itself, "all Christian 
Ecclesiae" is very difficult to understand. That all 
the Ecclesiae of not only Palestine, but Syria, 
various provinces of Asia Minor, Macedonia and 
Greece should have recently, either simultaneously 
or by joint action, have asked St Paul to convey 
their greetings to the Roman Christians is barely 
credible, and the addition of iraaai (omitted only in 
the later Syrian text and by no version) clinches 
the difficulty 1 . Observing this difficulty (which in- 

1 i Cor. xvi. 19, 20 is no true parallel, for such joint action of the 
Ecclesiae (or principal Ecclesiae, — there is no iracrai) of Proconsular 
Asia would be quite possible, and the second phrase (v. 20) " all the 
brethren " must by analogy mean all the individual brethren in the 
midst of whom St Paul was writing from Ephesus the capital. 



THE ■ ECCLESIA ' IN THE EPISTLES. 1 1 1 

deed had evidently been felt long ago by Origen), 
some of the older commentators suppose some 
such limitation as "all the Ecclesiae of Greece ": 
but this the Greek cannot possibly bear. It seems 
far more probable that by "the Ecclesiae of the 
Christ " the Messiah, St Paul means the Ecclesiae of 
those "of whom as concerning the flesh the Messiah 
came" (Rom. ix. 5), and to whom His Messiahship 
could not but mean more than it did to Jews of the 
Dispersion, much less to men of Gentile birth: in a 
word that he means the Ecclesiae of Judaea, of whom 
as we have seen, he has twice spoken already in other 
epistles. It might easily be that all these had been 
represented at some recent gathering at Jerusalem, 
and had there united in a message which some 
Jerusalem colleague or friend had since conveyed to 
him. 

This supposition gains in probability when we 
notice that, whatever may be the case elsewhere, 
6 xpicrTos is never used in this Epistle without some 
reference to Messiahship, though not always quite on 
the surface 1 . The least obvious, but for our purpose 
the most interesting, is xiv. 18, where the whole stress 
lies on ev tovtcd (cf. 2 Cor. xi. 13 f., 22 f.), and the mode 
of service of the Messiah just described is implicitly 
contrasted with a pretended service of the Messiah. 
The significance of the phrase comes out when it 
occurs again in that curious guarded postscript 

1 See Rom. vii. 4 ; ix. 3, 5 ; xv. 3 and 7 taken together. 



ii2 THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 

against the Judaizers which St Paul adds after his 
greetings (xvi. 17-20). "Such men," he says, "serve 
not the Christ who is our Lord, but their own belly " 
(i.e. by insisting on legal distinctions of meats), while, 
he means to say, they pretend to be the only true 
servants of the Messiah. Now the salutation im- 
mediately preceding this warning contains the words 
which we are considering. To you, Romans, he seems 
to say, I am bidden to send the greetings of all the 
true Ecclesiae of the Messiah. But you need to be 
warned about some who may hereafter come troubling 
you, and falsely claiming to be Messiah's only faithful 
servants, as against me and mine. Thus the enigmatic 
form of the salutation may arise out of the inevitably 
enigmatic form of the coming warning. 

Individuals not lost in the Society. 

Another interesting point which it is convenient 
to notice here is that twofold aspect of an Ecclesia 
which came before us early in the Acts, as being on 
the one hand itself a single body, and on the other 
made up of single living men. Here too there is an 
interesting sequence, though not a perfect one, in the 
order of the Epistles. 

The salutation to 1 and 2 Thessalonians is simply 
to the Ecclesia of the Thessalonians in God [our] 
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (this last phrase, 
we may note in passing, may be considered to include 
the tov 6eov of 1 and 2 Corinthians). 



THE 'ECCLESIA ' IN THE EPISTLES. 113 

In 1 Cor. i. 2 on the other hand we find the two 
aspects coupled together by a bold disregard of 
grammar rf) i/cfc\r]cria tov 6eov rfj ovarj iv KoplvOqy, 
rjytacr/JLevoLS iv X/no-rc3 'Irjcrov, fc\r)Tol$ aytoi? : the 
single Ecclesia in Corinth is identical with men who 
have been hallowed in Christ Jesus, and called to 
be saints. 

In 2 Cor. i. 1 there is a seeming return to the form 
used to the Thessalonians, the reason probably being 
that the name ' saints ' was reserved for the following 
<tvv tois aytois iraatv T0Z9 ovcriv iv o\rj tj) 'A^ata 
(only partially parallel to the crvv iraaiv etc. ot 
1 Corinthians) : there may also be a distinction be- 
tween the single Ecclesia of the great city Corinth 
and the scattered saints or Christians of the rest of 
Achaia. 

The case of Galatians is peculiar. Here St Paul 
was writing, not to a city alone, or to a great city, 
the capital of a region, but to a region containing 
various unnamed cities. He writes simply to "the 
Ecclesiae" (plural) of Galatia : to attach to this 
feminine plural a masculine plural would have been 
awkward and puzzling (in Acts xvi. 4 the change 
of gender from 7ro\€L<; to avroh explains itself) : and 
moreover the tone of rebuke in which this Epistle 
is couched has rendered its salutation in various 
respects exceptional. 

But when we come to Romans, the term Ecclesia 
disappears from the salutation, and the designation 

h. e. 8 



H4 THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 

of it by reference to its individual members, which in 
I Corinthians we found combined with Ecclesia, now 
stands alone, "to all that are in Rome beloved of 
God, called to be saints," each word "beloved 1 " and 
"saints 2 '' expressing a privilege once confined to 
Israel but now extended to the Gentiles. It is the 
same in Philippians ("to all the saints in Christ 
Jesus that are in Philippi ") ; and " Ephesians " (" to 
the saints that are [[in EphesusJ and faithful in 
Christ Jesus'') ; and finally Colossians ("to the saints 
and faithful brethren, or holy and faithful brethren, 
in Christ that are at Colossae ,, ). 

This later usage of St Paul is followed by St Peter 
(£/c\€/ctol<; irapeTTi^rjiJLOi^ hiaairopa^ followed after a 
few words by iv ayiacrfup irvevfiaro^), and by St Jude 
(jols iv 6ea> irarpl rjyaTrrjfievois, fcal ^Irjaov HpiaTw 

T€T7)p7]fJL€VOL$ fc\7)TOl<>). 

Connected with this carefulness to keep individual 
membership in sight, is the total absence of territorial 
language (so to speak) in the designations of local 
Ecclesiae. Three times the Ecclesia meant is desig- 
nated by the adjectival local name of its members, 
viz. in the salutations to I and 2 Thessalonians (ry 
etcic\r}Giq ©eaaaXovitcecov, "of Thessalonians": this per- 
sonal description being in effect a partial substitute 
for the absence of anything like fcXrjrots allocs), and 

1 See Rom. xi. 28 in connexion with Deut. xxxiii. 12 and other parts 
of the Old Tebtament. 2 See p. no. 



THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE ErISTLES. 115 

in a reference to the Ecclesia " of the Laodicenes " (rj) 
AaoSifcecov e/cfcXrjaia) in Col. iv. 16. In all other cases 
of a single city the Ecclesia is designated as " in " that 
city : so the salutations of I and 2 Corinthians, 
Romans, Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians ; also 
Cenchreae (Rom. xvi. 1), and each of the seven 
Ecclesiae of the Apocalypse. When the reference is 
to a whole region including a number of cities and 
therefore of Ecclesiae the usage is, on the surface, not 
quite constant Twice "in'' is used, for Judsea 
(1 Thess. ii. 14), and Asia (Apoc. i. 4): while in each 
case the form used can be readily accounted for by 
the accompanying words which rendered the use of 
"in" the only natural mode of designation, rwv 
ef€K\r)(7ioov tov 0€ov twv over oov ev rrj 'lovBaia ev 
l^pLGTG) 'Irjaov, and rats eirra ifCfckrjcrlais rah ev rfj 
'Aala. In all the other (six) cases, however, these plural 
designations of a plurality of Ecclesiae are designated 
by a genitive of the region ; the Ecclesiae of Judaea, 
Gal. i. 22; of Asia, 1 Cor. xvi. 19; of Galatia, 1 Cor. 
xvi. I and the salutation to the Galatians ; of 
Macedonia, 2 Cor. viii. 1 ; of the nations or Gentiles 
generally (r£>v eOv&v), Rom. xvi. 4. In these collective 
instances the simple and convenient genitive could 
lead to no misunderstanding. But we find no in- 
stance of such a form as " the Ecclesia of Ephesus " 
(a city) or " the Ecclesia of Galatia " (a region). No 
circumstances had yet arisen which could give pro- 
priety to such a form of speech. 

8—2 



n6 THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 

It may be well now for the sake of clearness, to 
reckon up separately, without detail, the various 
classes of Christian societies to which the term Ec- 
clesia is applied in the Epistles and Apocalypse. 

1. (sing, with art). The original Ecclesia of 
Jerusalem or Judaea, at a time when there was no 
other: — Gal. i. 13 ; i Cor. xv. 9; Phil. iii. 6: the 
occasion of reference in all three cases being St Paul's 
own action as a persecutor. 

2. (sing, with art.). The single local Ecclesia of 
a city which is named : — Thessalonica (1 Thess. i. 1 ; 
2 Thess. i. 1); Corinth (1 Cor. i. 2 ; 2 Cor. i. 1) ; 
Cenchreae (Rom. xvi. 1); Laodicea in Asia Minor 
(Col. iv. 16) ; each of the seven Ecclesiae of Proconsular 
Asia in Apoc. ii. iii. 

3. r) iicfckrjcria (sing, and with art), referring to 
the individual Ecclesia addressed ; or in one case the 
Ecclesia of the city from which the Epistle was 
written : — 1 Cor. vi. 4 ; xiv. 5, 12, 23 ; Rom. xvi. 23 ; 
1 Tim. v. 16 ; James v. 14 ; 3 John 9, 10. 

4. e/cfc\r]G-ia (sing, no art.), referring to any in- 
dividual Ecclesia: — 1 Cor. xiv. 4; 1 Tim. iii. 5, 15 ; 
and similarly iv irdo-y itc/cXrjo-la I Cor. iv. 17 ; ovSefita 
eiacXrjGia, Phil. iv. 1 5. 

5. (plur.). The sum of individual Ecclesiae in a 
named region: Judsea (1 Thess. ii. 14; Gal. i. 22); 
Galatia (1 Cor. xvi. 1 ; Gal. i. 2) ; Macedonia (2 Cor. 
viii. 1) ; Asia (Proconsular) 1 Cor. xvi. 19 ; Apoc. 
i. 4 (and practically vv. 11, 20 bis) ; or without a 



THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 117 

name, but apparently limited to a region named or 
implied in the context. Macedonia (2 Cor. viii. 19) 
and Proconsular Asia (Apoc. end of each epistle, 
ii. 23 (though with iracrai), and xxii. 16). 

6. (plur.). Not of a definite region, nor yet the 
sum of all individual Ecclesiae ; 2 Cor. xi. 8 (aXXa? 
i/eK\r)<rla<;) ; viii. 23 (diroaroXoL ifc/cXrjcrtoov) ; and 
more collectively irdcrai ai etcickr]<iiai roov eOvwv of 
Rom. xvi. 4, and al i/cfcXrjo-lcu iracrai rov ^pcarov 
of Rom. xvi. 16, which we have seen probably refer 
to the Judaean Ecclesiae. 

7. (plur.). The sum of all individual Ecclesiae 
(or all but the one written to) ; usually with irdaau 
(1 Cor. vii. 17, xiv. 33 [with roov ay low added] ; 2 Cor. 
viii. 18, 24; xi. 28) ; with Xonrai (2 Cor. xii. 13); or 
simply with rov deov (2 Thess. i. 4 ; 1 Cor. xi. 16). 

8. (sing.). The one universal Ecclesia as repre- 
sented in the local individual Ecclesia (as in the 
address to the Ephesian elders). This is confined 
to I Cor. (x. 32 ; xi. 22 ; and probably xii. 28). 

9. (sing.). The one universal Ecclesia absolutely. 
This is confined to the twin Epistles to Ephesians 
and Colossians (Eph. i. 22 ; iii. 10, 21 ; v. 23, 24, 25, 
27,29, 32; Col. i. 18, 24). 

10. (sing.). What may be called a domestic 
Ecclesia. This is a subject on which more will pro- 
bably be known hereafter than at present Thus far 
it seems pretty clear that St Paul's language points 
to a practice by which wealthy or otherwise im- 



nS THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 

portant persons who had become Christians, among 
their other services to their brother Christians, allowed 
the large hall or saloon often attached to (or included 
in) the larger sort of private houses, to be used as 
places of meeting, whether for worship or for other 
affairs of the community. Accordingly the Ecclesia 
in the house of this or that man, would seem to mean 
that particular assemblage of Christians, out of the 
Christians of the whole city, which was accustomed 
to meet under his roof. The instances are these, 
Aquila and Priscilla at Ephesus (i Cor. xvi. 19) ; the 
same pair afterwards at Rome (Rom. xvi. 5) ; Nym- 
pha (or some would say Nymphas) at Colossae 
(Col. iv. 15) ; and Philemon also at Colossae (Philem. 

2). 

11. An assembly of an Ecclesia, rather than the 
i/cfc\r)crLa itself. This use is at once classical and 
a return to the original force of qdhdL To it belongs 
the iv reus e/e/eX^crtcH? of 1 Cor. xiv. 34 (Let the 
women be silent in the Ecclesiae) ; as also, the semi- 
adverbial phrases when i/c/cXrjaia in the singular with- 
out an article is preceded by a preposition (iv i/c- 
tcXrjaia I Cor. xi. 18 ; xiv. 19, 28 ; evdirtov ifCfcXTjala^ 
3 John 6 ; analogous to the iv avvaycoyf of John 
vi. 59 ; xviii. 20). 

The many Ecclesiae and the one. 

In many of the passages here cited, as also in 
many passages of the Acts, we have had brought dis- 



THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 119 

tinctly before us the individuality of the several local 
Ecclesiae in the various cities. On the other hand, apart 
from those passages which speak of the one universal 
Ecclesia, whether absolutely, or as its attributes are 
reflected in a particular Ecclesia, we have varied 
evidence as to the pains taken by St Paul to coun- 
teract any tendency towards isolation and wantonness 
of independence, which might arise in the young 
communities which he founded, or with which he 
came in contact. The Epistle which contains most 
evidence of this kind is 1 Corinthians, the same Epistle 
which more than any other is occupied with resisting 
tendencies towards inward division. The spirit of 
lawlessness would evidently have a disintegrating 
effect in both spheres alike, as between the members 
of the individual Ecclesia, and as between it and 
the sister Ecclesiae of the same or other lands. The 
keynote as against isolation is struck in the very 
salutation (i. 2). Without going into all the ambi- 
guities of language in that verse, we can at least see 
that in some manner the Corinthians are there taught 
to look on themselves as united to " all who in every 
place invoke the name of our Lord Jesus Christ " ; and 
I believe we may safely add that " theirs and ours " 
means " their Lord and ours," the one Lord being set 
forth as the common bond of union, and obedience 
to His will as Lord, the uniting law of life. Then 
in v. 9, after giving thanks for those gifts of theirs 
which they were in danger of allowing to lead them 



120 THE 'ECCLESIA* IN THE EPISTLES. 

astray, he assures them " Faithful is the God through 
whom ye were called into fellowship of His Son 
Jesus Christ our Lord/' — fellowship of Him, not only 
fellowship with Him, though that also, but fellowship 
one with another and with all saints, derived from 
that fellowship with Himself which was common 
to them all. 

Having put before the Corinthians this funda- 
mental teaching at the beginning of the Epistle, 
St Paul repeatedly afterwards gives it a practical 
application by his appeals to Christian usage else- 
where. The authorities to which he appeals are 
of various kinds, e.g. traditions which he had 
himself first received and then passed on to them 
and to others, his own personal qualifications for 
judgment, expediency or edification, the teaching of 
" nature " : but in addition to these he condemns 
Corinthian practices or tendencies by reference to 
the adverse practice of other Ecclesiae. Of the pray- 
ing of women unveiled he says (xi. 16) "We have 
no such custom, neither the Ecclesiae of God." En- 
joining order in the prophesyings (or according to 
another punctuation the silence of women in the 
assemblies), he adds (xiv. 33) "as in all the Ecclesiae 
of the Saints," and with reference to the latter 
point asks indignantly (v. 36) " Is it from you that 
the word of God came forth, or is it unto you alone 
that it reached ? " In a different and calmer tone 
he simply seeks a precedent for what he would 



THE < ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 121 

have the Corinthians do in the matter of the col- 
lection for Judaea (xvi. 1); "as I directed for the 
Ecclesiae of Galatia, so do ye also." For a much 
larger matter of practice and principle, the remaining 
of each convert in the relation of life in which he 
previously found himself, he urges (vii. 17) "and so 

1 direct in all the Ecclesiae " ; while in an earlier 
passage, he binds up this principle of community with 
the obligations created by his personal relation as a 
founder (iv. 14 — 17), bidding them be imitators of 
him, as their true father in respect of their new life, 
and telling them that he sends them in Timothy 
another beloved child of his, "who shall put you in 
mind of my ways that are in Christ Jesus, as I teach 
everywhere in every Ecclesia." 

In other places we find the community between 
Ecclesiae brought out from a different point of view 
by St Paul's warm thanksgivings for the going forth 
of the faith and love of this or that Ecclesia towards 
other Ecclesiae, so as to be known and to bear fruit 
far beyond its own limits (1 Thess. i. 7 f. ; iv. 9 f. ; 

2 Thess. i. 3 f. ; 2 Cor. iii. 2 ; Rom. i. 8 ; Col. i. 4). 
I need not repeat the details of the special pro- 
minence given by St Paul to the " collection for the 
Saints" as a means of knitting the Gentile and 
Jewish Christians together. One practical result of 
friendly intercommunion between separate Ecclesiae 
would be the cultivation of hospitality, the assurance 



122 THE 'ECCLESIA' IN THE EPISTLES. 

that Christians who had need to travel would find a 
temporary home and welcome wherever other Chris- 
tians were gathered together (cf. Rom. xii. 13 ; 1 Pet. 
iv. 9 ; Heb. xiii. 2 ; 3 John 5-8). Again, St Paul had 
doubtless a deliberate purpose when he rejoiced to 
convey the mutual salutations of Ecclesiae (1 Cor. xvi. 
19 ; Rom. xvi. 4, 16 ; Phil. iv. 22) ; himself commended 
Phoebe to the Romans as one who ministered to the 
sister Ecclesia at Cenchreae (Rom. xvi. 1, 2) ; gave 
orders for the exchange of epistles of his, addressed 
to two neighbouring Ecclesiae (Col. iv. 16) ; and made 
this or that Ecclesia a sharer, so to speak, in his own 
work of founding or visiting other Ecclesiae by al- 
lusions to his being forwarded by them (irpoire^ 
<j}0fjvai: 1 Cor. xvi. 6 ; 2 Cor. i. 16 ; Rom. xv. 24). By 
itself each of these details may seem trivial enough : 
but together they help to shew how St Paul's re- 
cognition of the individual responsibility and sub- 
stantial independence of single city Ecclesiae was 
brought into harmony with his sense of the unity 
of the body of Christ as a whole, by this watchful 
care to seize every opportunity of kindling and keep- 
ing alive in each society a consciousness of its share 
in the life of the great Ecclesia of God. 



LECTURE VIII. 
The Earlier Epistles of St Paul. 

We must now pass to the Epistles themselves, 
taken mainly in chronological order, without however 
attempting to notice more than a very few of the 
most instructive passages bearing on our subject. 
Strictly speaking a large part of them all has a 
bearing on it, as we must see when once we recognise 
that in the Apostle's eyes all true life in an Ecclesia 
is a life of community, of the harmonious and mutually 
helpful action of different elements, so that he is giving 
instruction on the very essence of membership when 
in each of the nine Epistles addressed to Ecclesiae he 
makes the peace of God to be the supreme standard 
for them to aim at, and the perpetual self-surrender 
of love the comprehensive means of attaining it 

The Epistles to the Thessalonians. 

To begin with I Thessalonians. At the outset 
St Paul dwells much on the marks of Gods special 
love (i, 4), His special choice or election of them 
(doubtless chiefly at least their election as a com- 



124 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 

munity), as attested in the warmth with which under 
severe trials they had embraced the Gospel, and 
become imitators of himself and his associates and of 
the Lord ; so that from them the word of the Lord 
had sounded forth anew far and wide. This was 
how they came to be an Ecclesia. 

Of the temper and attitude which should always 
govern the members of an Ecclesia towards each 
other preeminently and then further towards all 
men, he has much to say in various places, the 
foundation being ' love ' in accordance with the Lord's 
own new commandment, and the comprehensive re- 
sult, His gift of peace 1 : where, as in iv. 9, §CkaZek$ia 
comes in, it connotes the special principle of action as 
between Christian and Christian, not ' brotherly love ', 
as A.V. usually has it, i.e. love like that of brethren, 
but actual ' love of brethren ' as being brethren. 

Two closely related passages, one in each Epistle, 
deserve attention. 

In 2 Thess. iii. 6 — 16 is a remarkable warning 
against some brethren among the Thessalonians who 
walked 4 in an irregular and disorderly way ' (dTdfCTcos, 
the word carrying with it the association of the verb 
dTa/creco applied to soldiers who leave their ranks 
or who do not keep in rank) : they walked, he says, 
" not according to the tradition which ye received from 
us." The special point would seem to be that on 

1 See 1 Thess. iii. 12; iv. 9 — 11, &c. 



THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 125 

some plea or other, whether of sanctity or gifts of 
teaching or the like (we are not told which) they 
claimed a specially privileged position, particularly 
the privilege of being supported by others. Against 
this pretension St Paul sets his own deliberate practice 
when among them, how he followed no irregular and 
exceptional ways (ovk r^rafCTrjaa/jbev iv vfilv) y but in 
spite of the right which he might have acted on, 
worked for his own bread, that he might shew in his 
own person an example for all to copy, as well as 
not to burden any of them. " And if any," he adds, 
" hearkeneth not to our word through the epistle, note 
that man not to company with him, that he may be 
ashamed (ivrpairfj) ; and count him not as an enemy, 
but admonish him as a brother. And may the Lord 
of peace Himself give you His peace at all times in 
every way." Here we have the beginning of the " dis- 
cipline " of an Ecclesia, exercised by the community 
itself. Seclusion from the society of its members 
is seen illustrating by contrast what membership of 
an Ecclesia means on its practical side. 

The other passage is in 1 Thess. v. 11 — 15, 23. 
Here the practised life of membership is the starting 
point. " Wherefore encourage ye one another (irapa- 
/caXetre aWrjXovs), and build ye up each 1 the other 

1 The Greek here (els rbv 2ua) is remarkable, and may be illustrated 
by 1 Cor. iv. 6 Xva fii) eh virep rod evbs (pvcriovcrde Kara rod iripov, 
St Paul's point there being the dividing effect of inflatedness or puffing 
up, as here the uniting effect of mutual building up. 



126 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 

as also ye do." Then come two verses in which 
St Paul interrupts his words to and about the 
Thessalonian Christians generally, in order to call 
their attention to a special class among them : 
" But we ask you, brethren, to keep in knowledge 
(elSevcu) them that labour among you and guide 
you in the Lord (irpoiG-Tafievov^ vfjidov ev K.vpi(p) and 
admonish you, and to esteem them very exceed- 
ingly (as we should say ' in a special way ' virepeic- 
irepiaaov or -ok) because of their work. Be at peace 
in (or among) yourselves." Though it is morally 
impossible that Trpolaraixevov^ 1 can here be the tech- 
nical title of an office standing as it does between 
"labouring" and "admonishing", yet the persons meant 
are to all appearance office-bearers of the Ecclesia. 
The reference is the more interesting because else- 
where in St Pauls Epistles (Pastoral Epistles and 
the salutation in Phil. i. I excepted) we find no other 
mention of such persons as actually existing in any 
individual church. It can hardly be doubted that 
Elders are meant, though no title is given. The 
characteristics assigned to them are three. Their 
labouring (/co7rt(ovTa<;) is doubtless specially meant 
to be opposed to the conduct of such persons as we 
have seen denounced in the Second Epistle (Hi. II). 
Then comes their guidance, irpolara/jievov^y a word 

1 This common assumption is further negatived by the prevailing 
usage of TTpoiarafiai (especially in the present) both in ordinary Greek 
and in the New Testament. 



THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 127 

usually applied to informal 1 leaderships and manag- 
ings of all kinds, rather than to definite offices, and 
associated with the services rendered to dependents 
by a patron 2 , so that (as in Romans) helpful leader- 
ship in Divine things would be approximately the 
thought suggested. Third comes their work of ad- 
monition or warning. Of any other form of teaching 
nothing is said ; and probably all three descriptions 
should be taken as setting forth services rendered 
to the individual members of the Ecclesia, rather 
than to the Ecclesia as a whole. 

After this digression St Paul takes up (1 Thess. v. 
14) the thread dropped after v. 1 1 : "But we exhort you, 
brethren, admonish the disorderly (drd/crow again), 
encourage the fainthearted, sustain the weak, be long- 
suffering towards all." The services then which have 
just been mentioned as specially rendered by the 
Elders, were not essentially different from services 
which members of the Ecclesia, simply as brethren, 
were to render each other. They too were to ad- 
monish the disorderly, as also to do the converse 
work of encouraging the feebleminded. They too 
were to make the cause of the weak 3 their own, to 
sustain them, which is at least one side, if not more, 

1 Cf. Rom. xii. 8 6 irpoiGT&iievos 4v cnrovdy between two very different 
clauses. 

2 Cf. Rom. xvi. 2 Kal yap a^rij (Phoebe) irpoaT&Tis iroXKQv iyevr)67) 
KaX ifiov avTov. See p. 207. 

8 Cf. Chrysostom on Rom. xii. 6; Acts xx. 35 (addressed to the 
Ephesian Elders ovtus Koiriwi'Tas 5ei avTCkaiifiavecrdai tQiv aaQevovvTOiv). 



128 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 

of the { helpful leadership ' of the Elders ; as well as 
to shew long suffering towards all. And again to- 
wards the close it is "the God of peace Himself" 
that St Paul prays may hallow and keep the Thes- 
salonians. 

The Epistles to the Corinthians. 

The next Epistle, I Corinthians, is perhaps the 
richest of all in illustrative matter: but we must 
pass through it very quickly. Of late years it has 
been the occasion of an interesting theory. Many 
people seem to find a difficulty in believing that the 
Ecclesiae founded by St Paul in the west, or perhaps 
even further east among heathen populations, were 
founded on a Jewish basis, such as the Acts seems 
to imply, in at least the earlier cases. It has been 
pointed out that evidence is fast accumulating (chiefly 
from inscriptions) respecting the existence of mul- 
titudes of clubs or associations, religious or other, in 
the Greek cities of the Empire ; and it has been 
suggested that in such places as Corinth, the Chris- 
tian congregation or society was an adaptation rather 
of some such Greek models as these than of any Jewish 
congregation or society. The presence of these heathen 
brotherhoods in the same cities with the new Chris- 
tian brotherhoods is in any case a striking fact ; and 
it may be that hereafter traces of their influence may 
be detected in the Epistles. But I must confess that 
at present, as far as I can see, it is the paucity and 



THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 129 

uncertainty of such traces that are chiefly surprising. 
It would not have been right to pass over so plausible 
a suggestion in silence : but I fear it will give us no 
help towards interpreting the evidence of the Epistles 
themselves. 

The first few verses of 1 Corinthians (i. 4 — 9) after 
the salutation give us its main theme. St Paul thanks 
God for the gifts in which these typical Greeks of the 
Empire were rich, 'speech* and 'knowledge,' and then 
goes on to warn them against the natural abuse of 
these gifts, the self-assertion fostered by glibness and 
knowingness, and the consequent spirit of schism or 
division, the very contradiction of the idea of an 
Ecclesia. The habit of seeming to know all about 
most things, and of being able to talk glibly about 
most things, would naturally tend to an excess of 
individuality, and a diminished sense of corporate 
responsibilities. This fact supplies, under many dif- 
ferent forms, the main drift of 1 Corinthians. Never 
losing his cordial appreciation of the Corinthian en- 
dowments, St Paul is practically teaching throughout 
that a truly Christian life is of necessity the life of 
membership in a body. 

After the thanksgiving he exhorts them (i. 10 — 17) 
by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, the bond of a 
common service, that they all say the same thing, 
and there be in them no rents or divisions (crj^o-- 
fiara), but that they be perfected in the same mind 
and in the same judgment. He has heard that there 

H. E. 9 



130 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 

are strifes among them, due to partisanships adorned 
with Apostolic names. To all this he opposes the 
Cross of the Messiah. Presently (iii. 16 f.) he ac- 
counts for all by their forgetfulness that they were a 
temple, or shrine of God (for His Spirit by inhabiting 
their community or Ecclesia made it into a shrine of 
Himself), and he reminds them that this marring of the 
temple of God by their going each his own way was 
making them guilty of violence against the holiness 
of God ; and again further on (iv. 6) he points out 
that the party factions which rent the Ecclesia, while 
they seemed to be in honour of venerated names, were 
in reality only a puffing up of each man against his 
neighbour. 

With the fifth chapter the concrete practical ques- 
tions begin. First comes the grievous moral offence 
which the Corinthian Christians were so strangely 
tolerating in one of their own number. St Paul's 
language, circuitous as it may sound, has a distinct 
and instructive purpose when closely examined. 
The condemnation that he pronounces is not from 
a distance or in his own name merely: twice over 
he represents himself as present, present in spirit, 
in an assembly where the Corinthians and his spirit 
are gathered together with the power of our Lord 
Jesus. That is, while he is peremptory that the in- 
cestuous person shall be excluded from the community, 
he is equally determined that the act shall be their 
own act, not a mere compliance with a command 



THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PA UL. 131 

of his: "do not ye judge them that are within," he 
asks, "while them that are without God judgeth ? 
Put away (Deut. xxii. 24) the evil man out of your- 
selves/' 

How little this zeal for the purity of the commu- 
nity involved a pitiless disregard of the individual 
offender we may see from 2 Cor. ii. 

The next chapter (vi.) contains a rebuke at once of 
the litigious spirit which contradicted the idea of a 
community, and of the consequent habit of having 
recourse to heathen tribunals rather than the arbitra- 
tion of brethren. 

The eighth chapter lays down the social rule that 
a man is bound not by his own conscience only, but 
by the injury which he may do to the conscience of 
his brethren. 

The next three chapters (ix. — xi.) set forth in 
various ways the entrance into the one body by 
baptism, and the sustenance of the higher life by that 
Supper of the Lord 1 in which the mutual communion 

1 In x. 16 — 21, in arguing against complicity with idolatry through 
offered meats, he appeals to the one bread which is broken as a Com- 
munion of the body of the Christ, and then explains why: "because" he 
says, "we the many are one bread, one body, for we partake all of us 
[of bread] from the one bread." 

The Holy Communion is more directly the subject of xi. 17 — 34, the 
special occasion being the injuries done to Christian fellowship by the 
practices which were tolerated at the Communion feast still identical 
with the Agape. 

To these differences he applies the same term ^xtcr/mra (v. 18) which 
in the first chapter he had applied to the parties glorying in Apostolic 
names. 



132 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 

of members of the body, and the communion of each 
and all with the Head of the body are indissolubly 
united. 

For our purpose the central chapter is the twelfth, 
starting from the differences of gifts and proceeding to 
the full exposition of the relation of body and members. 
But to this we shall have to return presently, as also 
to the closing verses setting forth the variety of func- 
tions appointed by God in the Ecclesia. Then comes 
the familiar thirteenth chapter on love, which in the 
light of St Paul's idea of the Ecclesia we can see to 
be no digression, this gift of the Spirit being incom- 
parably more essential to its life than any of the gifts 
which caught men's attention. 

Yet these too had their value subordinate as it 
was, and so in ch. xiv. St Paul teaches the Corinthians 
what standard to apply to them one with another, 
these standards being chiefly rational intelligibility, 
edification, i.e. the good of the community, and fitness 
for appealing to the conscience of heathen spectators. 

2 Cor. contains little fresh but the peculiar verse, 
ix. 13. The concluding section (xii. 19 — xiii. 13) 
implies the same fears as to breaches of unity as 
the first Epistle ; and it is worth notice from this 
point of view that in the final benediction the love of 
God and the communion of the Holy Spirit is added 
to the usual grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Galatians likewise calls now for no special remark. 



THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 133 

The Epistle to the Romans. 

St Paul's peculiar position towards the Romans 
invests his Epistle to them with an interest of its 
own. We saw before that the Ecclesia of Antioch 
was founded by no Apostle, and, as the Epistle 
shews, it is the same with that of the mighty Rome, 
which had sprung up no one knows how, no one knows 
when, from some promiscuous scattering of the seed 
of truth ; though a later age invented a founding of 
both by St Peter. The contrast in St Paul's tone, 
its total absence of any claim to authority, illustrates 
how large a part of the authority which he exercised 
towards other Ecclesiae was not official, so to speak, 
but personal, involved in his unique position as 
their founder, their father in the new birth. Here 
(i. 1 1 f.) telling the Romans that he longs to see them 
that he may impart to them some spiritual gift that 
they may be stablished, he instantly explains himself, 
" that is that / with you 1 may be comforted in you, each 
of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine." 

Almost the whole Epistle is governed by the 
thought which was rilling St Paul's mind at this time, 
the relation of Jew and Gentile, the place of both in 
the counsels of God, and the peaceful inclusion of 
both in the same brotherhood. On the one hand 
the failure and the obsoleteness of the Law in its 
letter is set forth more explicitly than ever; on the 

1 Cf. xv. 32 "and together with you find rest." 



134 THE EARLIER EPISTLES OF ST PAUL. 

other the continuous growth of the new Ecclesia out 
of the old Ecclesia is expounded by the image of 
the grafting of the wild Gentile olive into the ancient 
olive tree of Israel. 

The apparently ethical teaching of chapters xii. 
and xiii. is really for the most part on the principles 
of Christian fellowship, and rests on teaching about 
the body and its members, and about diversity of 
gifts resembling what occurs in I Corinthians, and 
will similarly need further examination presently. 

Again ch. xiv. may be taken with I Cor. x. 

Lastly, the fifteenth and parts of the sixteenth 
chapter illustrate historically, as other chapters had 
done doctrinally 1 , St Paul's yearnings for the unity of 
all Christians of East and West, and its association in 
his mind with his carrying the Gentile offering to 
Jerusalem, and, if he should then escape death, with 
his own presence at Rome, the centre and symbol of 
civil unity. 



1 Note how here also the application of the principle of fidelity to 
Christian fellowship in xv. 7 to "mutual reception" (irpo<j\o.pfi<xve<rde 
aWrjXovs, cf. xiv. 1, 3; xi. 15) is specially connected with the relations 
of Jewish to Gentile Christians ; and how once more the same principle 
is illustrated from another side by the remarkable section xvi. 1 7 — 20 
which St Paul interposes as by an afterthought before the original final 
salutation, with its warnings against the (unnamed) Judaizers from whom 
he feared the introduction of divisions (dtxoaTaaias) and stumblingblocks, 
and its confident hope that nevertheless the God of peace would shortly 
bruise Satan under their feet, Satan the author of all discord and cunning 
calumny, of all that is most opposed to the purposes for which the 
Ecclesia of God and His Christ had been founded. 



LECTURE IX. 

The One Universal Ecclesia in the 
Epistles of the First Roman Captivity. 

We now enter on that period of the Apo- 
stolic Age which begins with St Paul's arrival at 
Rome. His long-cherished hope was at last fulfilled, 
though not in the way which he had proposed to 
himself. He had met face to face the Christian 
community which had grown up independently of all 
authoritative guidance in the distant capital ; and, on 
the way, the Gentile offering which he carried to the 
Christians of Jerusalem had been accepted by their 
leaders, and he had escaped, though barely escaped, 
martyrdom at the hands of his unbelieving country- 
men. Delivered from this danger, and shut up for 
two years at Caesarea, probably with great advantage 
to the cause for which he laboured, he had reached 
Rome at last as the prisoner of the Roman authorities. 
Here he spent another period of two years in another 
enforced seclusion, which still more evidently gave 



136 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 

him a place of vantage for spreading the Gospel such 
as he could hardly have had as a mere visitor (see 
Lightfoot, Phil. 18 f.). The four extant Epistles 
belonging to this period are pervaded by a serenity 
and a sense of assurance such as are rarely to be 
found in their six predecessors, even in Romans, and 
this increased happiness of tone is closely connected 
with St Paul's thoughts and hopes about the various 
Ecclesiae and about the Ecclesia. 

The Epistle to the Philippians. 

We begin with the Epistle to the Philippians. The 
last words of the opening salutation (i. i) avv eTricnco- 
7Tot9 zeal SiatcovoiSy " with the bishops (or overseers) and 
deacons " (R.V.), will be examined to better effect 
after we have considered the usage of the same words 
in the Pastoral Epistles. 

The special joy which fills the Apostle's mind in 
his outpourings to the Philippian Christians is called 
forth by their warm and active fellowship or commu- 
nion with him, not simply as the messenger of truth 
to themselves at a former time, but as now and in the 
future the chief herald of the Gospel to other regions 1 . 
Their sympathies and aspirations were not shut up 
within their own little community. 

St Paul has likewise much to say to the Philippians 
on the inward relations of the Ecclesia, for this is the 
purport of his varied and strenuous exhortations to 

1 See i. 5—7 ; 12—20; 25 f.; ii. 17—30; iv. 3, 10, 14—19. 

\ 



THE ECCLESIA AS ONE, 137 

unity, and that on the basis of a corporate life worthy 
of the Gospel of Christ, Such is doubtless the force of 
the pregnant phrase in i. 27 [R. V. Mg.] ' behave as 
citizens worthily of the Gospel of the Christ ' (povov 
af;ia)<z rod evayyeXiov rov yj)i<jTov TroXtrevecrde), iroXi- 
t€vojjlcll retaining its strict sense 1 'to live the life of 
citizens \ not merely the weaker late sense [R. V. text] 
'to behave, conduct themselves'. It is thus closely 
connected with the familiar ' citizenship ' {iroXirevfjia) of 
iii. 20, the new commonwealth having its centre in 
Heaven, to which Christians belong, being implicitly 
contrasted with the terrestrial commonwealth centred 
at Jerusalem, resting on laws about mere externals 
such as circumcision and distinctions of meats. And 
the same contrast underlies this exhortation to live a 
community life (iroXtreveaOe) worthy of the Gospel of 
the Christ, one directed not by submission to statutes 
but by the inward powers of the spirit of fellowship ; 
as St Paul himself explains within the same sentence, 
"that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul 
wrestling together through the faith of the Gospel " 
(the faith which it teaches and inspires); and more 
fully still in the following section (ii. 1 — 11). 



1 This strict sense is similarly the right one, in the only other place 
of the New Testament where the verb occurs, Acts xxiii. 1, St Paul 
there using it of himself as one who had loyally lived the life of a true 
Jew. Various places in some books of the Apocrypha, in Josephus, and 
nearly a century later in Justin's dialogue with the Jew Trypho, shew 
that it must have been commonly used by the Jews in this familiar sense 



138 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 

The Epistle to the l Ephesians' 

We now come to the three Epistles which the 
same messenger carried into Asia Minor, the Epistles 
to the ' Ephesians \ to the Colossians, and to Philemon. 

The Epistle to Philemon concerns us only by the 
speaking testimony which it bears to the reality of 
the Ecclesia as a brotherhood as shown in the new 
footing on which it was possible for master and slave 
to stand towards each other without any interference 
with the status and legal conditions of servitude. 

Nor will it be worth our while to give time 
separately to the Epistle to the Colossians, nearly all 
that it contains directly pertinent to our subject being 
contained likewise in ' Ephesians \ 

On the other hand ' Ephesians ' is peculiarly rich in 
instructive materials and would repay a much more 
complete examination than could be attempted within 
our limits 1 . He would be a bold man who should 
suppose himself to have fully mastered even the 
outlines of its teaching : but even the slightest patient 
study of it must be fruitful, provided we are willing to 
find in it something more than we have brought to it. 
On the other hand it is only too easy to exaggerate 
its exceptional character. Its teaching is, so to speak, 
the culmination of St Paul's previous teaching, not a 
wholly new message divided by a sharp line from 
what had been spoken before. If we enquire into the 
cause of this culmination, it is not enough to try to 

1 See further in Hort's Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians, 



THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 139 

account for it solely by mental progress in St Paul, 
by ampler experience and riper thought. Such 
progress, wrought by such causes of progress, must of 
course have existed in the case of a man in whom the 
free flow of inward life was so little hampered by 
languor or obstruction ; and, if so, it would naturally 
reflect itself in his writings. But we have also to 
remember the significant hint given us in 1 Cor. ii. that 
the teaching which he addressed to unripe communi- 
ties was purposely cut down to be proportional to 
their spiritual state, and that all the while he was 
cherishing in his own mind a world of higher thoughts, 
" a wisdom ", he calls it, which could rightly be pro- 
claimed only to maturer recipients ; though here and 
there, for instance in some passages of Romans, he 
could not refrain from partially admitting others to 
these inner thoughts. This being the case, he might 
well desire to make some Christian communities 
depositaries of this reserved wisdom before he died, 
and the Ecclesiae of Ephesus and other cities of that 
region may have seemed to him to have now reached 
a sufficiently high stage of discipleship to enable them 
to receive with advantage what he now wished to say. 
The primary subjects of this higher teaching may be 
described as the relation of the Son of God to the 
constitution of the Universe, and to the course of 
human history, and in connexion with such themes it 
was but natural that the Ecclesia of God should find 
a place. 



Ho THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 

But there were other reasons why St Paul should 
think and write about the Ecclesia at this time, 
reasons arising in part at least out of concrete con- 
temporary history. We have already seen how in the 
period preceding his two captivities his mind was 
filled with the antithesis of Jew and Gentile within 
the Christian fold, and with the steady purpose of 
averting division by his dangerous last journey to 
Jerusalem, after which he hoped to crown his missions, 
as it were, by friendly intercourse with the Christians 
of Rome. The abiding monument of this aspiration is 
the Epistle to the Romans, and * Ephesians ' is a corre- 
sponding monument of the same thoughts from the 
side of fulfilment instead of anticipation. It is hardly 
a paradox to say that neither of these two great 
Epistles is really intelligible without the other. To a 
Jew, or a Christian brought up as a Jew, there could 
be no such cleavage among mankind as that between 
the people within the old covenant and the promiscu- 
ous nations without it. A Christian who understood 
his own faith could not but believe that the death on 
Calvary had filled up the chasm, or (in St Paul's 
figure) dissolved the middle wall of partition. But 
all would seem to have been done in vain if the work 
of God were repudiated by wretched human factious- 
ness, and if Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians 
renounced and spurned each other. This worst of 
dangers was now to all appearance averted, and so 
St Paul could expound to the Gentiles of Asia Minor 



THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 141 

the uniting counsel of God without serious misgivings 
lest perverse human facts should frustrate the great 
Divine purpose. 

A phrase or two must suffice to quote from 
ii. n — 22, "He is our peace who made the both 
(ra a/juporepa neuter) one"; again, "that He might 
found the two in Himself into one new man, 
making peace, and might reconcile the both (tov? 
afjLcfyoTepovs masc.) in one body to God through 
the Cross." Hitherto the Acts and Epistles have 
been setting before us only a number of separate inde- 
pendent little communities each called an Ecclesia: 
at least this holds good for Gentile Christendom 
from Antioch outwards, and perhaps even for Pales- 
tine. Now however the course of events has led the 
Apostle to think of all Jewish Christians collectively, 
and all Gentile Christians collectively, and of both 
these two multitudes of men as now made one in the 
strictest sense, " one new man ". But this fusion is no 
mere negative or destructive process. To take away 
the distinction of Jew and Gentile without putting 
anything better in its place would have been deadly 
retrogression, not progress : fusion takes place because 
Jewish and Gentile believers alike are members of a 
single new society held together by a yet more solemn 
consecration than the old, and that new society is 
called " the Ecclesia " : in other words for Christians it 
is true to say that there is one Ecclesia, as well as to 
say that there are many Ecclesiae. 



i 4 2 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 

It would seem accordingly that to St Paul, when 
writing this Epistle, " the Ecclesia" was a kind of sym- 
bol or visible expression of that wondrous ' mystery ', 
to use his own word, which had been hidden through- 
out the ages but was now made manifest, that the 
Gentiles were fellow-heirs and of the same body, and 
partakers of the same promises in Christ Jesus through 
the Gospel, and hence that it was likewise a symbol 
or visible expression of the Wisdom, as he calls it, by 
which God was working out His purpose through 
diversities of ages and by means which seemed for 
the time to foil Him. This subject is in some respects 
more fully expounded in Rom. ix. — xi., but without 
clear mention of the Ecclesia. It is probably in 
reference to it that St Paul speaks (iii. 10) of the 
" manifoldly diverse " (or resourceful irokviroiicCkoi) 
wisdom of God, as being made known to the heavenly 
powers through the Ecclesia, i.e. through beholding 
the Ecclesia and considering the light which its very 
existence threw back on dark places of the world's 
history in the past. Nay through the Apostle's 
guarded words we may probably gather that the 
Ecclesia, with these associations attached to it, was to 
him likewise a kind of pledge for the complete 
fulfilment of God's purpose in the dim future. Ideally 
the Ecclesia was coextensive with humanity : all who 
shared the manhood which Christ had taken were 
potentially members of the Ecclesia : its ideals were 
identical with the ideals of a cleansed and perfected 



THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 143 

humanity. In ascribing glory to Him who is able to 
do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or 
think according to the power which is inwrought in 
us, he lets us see (iii. 20 f.) what present facts were 
inspiring this reaching forward of hope, by adding 
"in the Ecclesia and in Christ Jesus (the Divine 
Head of the Ecclesia) unto all the generations of 
the age of the ages." 

But if the securing of the union of Jewish and 
Gentile Christians on equal terms was one cause of 
St Paul's distinct recognition of the Ecclesia as one at 
this time, his position at Rome must have been 
another. Although his language in Romans shews 
that he had no intention of treating the community 
at Rome as having no legitimate position till he 
should give it some sort of Apostolic authorisation, 
he evidently did naturally feel that his function as 
Apostle of the Gentiles had a certain incompleteness 
till he had joined in Christian work and fellowship in 
the capital of the Gentile world, and brought the 
Roman community into closer relations of sympathy 
with other Christian communities through the bond 
of his own person. Writing now from Rome he could 
not have divested himself, if he would, of a sense of 
writing from the centre of earthly human affairs ; all 
the more, since we know from the narrative in 
Acts xxii. that he was himself a Roman citizen, and 
apparently proud to hold this place in the Empire. 



144 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 

Here then he must have been vividly reminded of the 
already existing unity which comprehended both Jew 
and Gentile under the bond of subjection to the 
Emperor at Rome, and similarity and contrast alike 
would suggest that a truer unity bound together in 
one society all believers in the Crucified Lord. Some 
generations were to pass before the Christian Ecclesia 
and the Roman Empire were to stand out visibly in 
the eyes of men as rivals and at last as deadly 
antagonists. But even in the Apostolic age the 
impressiveness of the Empire might well contribute 
to the shaping of the thoughts of a St Paul about 
his scattered fellow-believers. 

Besides these two causes for the transition from 
the usage of applying the term Ecclesia only to an 
individual local community to this late use of it in the 
most comprehensive sense, we must not forget the 
biblical associations with the Ecclesia of Israel which 
were evidently suggestive of unity, and perhaps a 
similar mode of speech as regards the Christians of 
Palestine before the Antiochian Ecclesia had come 
into existence. But apparently these influences did 
not affect current usage till changed circumstances 
pointed to the use of a collective name. 

The image of the body, 

'Ephesians' contains however other definitions of 
the Ecclesia which are in like manner led up to by 



THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 145 

corresponding language in earlier Epistles. The most 
important of these is the image of the body. The 
cardinal passages are two, in 1 Cor. xii. and in Rom. 
xii.: the interesting but difficult allusion in 1 Cor. x. 
16, 17 may be passed over. In 1 Cor. xii. St Paul 
deals with the vexed question of spiritual powers, 
and counteracts the disposition to treat the more ex- 
ceptional and abnormal kinds of powers as peculiarly 
spiritual, by treating all powers as merely different 
modes of manifestation of the same Spirit, and each 
power as a gift bestowed on its recipient, with a 
view to what is expedient (77-/009 to av/jLcfrepov). From 
the Spirit and its manifestations he then descends to 
the recipients themselves. The reason, it is implied, 
why they have received different powers is because 
there are different functions to be discharged answer- 
ing to these several powers ; and the meaning of 
this difference of functions is explained by the fact 
that together they constitute a body, of which each is 
a different member "for (v. 13) in one Spirit we were 
all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, 
whether bond or free, and were all made to drink of 
one Spirit." He points out that in a body the whole 
is dependent on the diversity of office of the several 
members, and that each member is dependent on the 
office of the other members. Then he adds, " But ye 
are a body of Christ (acofMa 'Xptarov) y and members 
severally." (The next verses we must come to 
presently.) Here evidently it is the Corinthian 

H. E. IO 



146 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 

community by itself that is called a * body of Christ* : 
this depends not merely on the absence of an article 
but on v/jbels, which cannot naturally mean "all ye 
Christians." 

In Rom. xii. 3 — 5 all is briefer, but the ideas 
are essentially the same. The central verse is, "As 
in one body we have many members, and all the 
members have not the same office (action), so we the 
many are one body in Christ, and severally members 
one of another." Here the language used is not 
formally applied to the Roman community in par- 
ticular : but the context shews that St Paul is still 
thinking of local communities, and of the principles 
which should regulate the membership of the Roman 
community, as of all others. 

In ' Ephesians ' the image is extended to embrace 
all Christians, and the change is not improbably 
connected with the clear setting forth of the relation 
of the Body to its Head which now first comes before 
us. In the illustrative or expository part of the 
passage of 1 Cor. indeed (v. 21) the head is men- 
tioned ; but only as one of the members, and nothing 
answers to it in what is said of the body of Christ and 
its members. And again in the rather peculiar 
language of v. 12 (ovtcos teal 6 xpeo-ros) Christ seems 
to be represented by a natural and instructive varia- 
tion of the image, as Himself constituting the whole 
body (in accordance with the Pauline phrase ev 
XpcaTQ)), without reference positively or negatively to 



THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 147 

the head. This limitation was the more natural in 
these two cases because in both the main purpose was 
rather a practical than a doctrinal one, the repression 
of vanities and jealousies by vivid insistence on the 
idea of diversity and interdependence of functions. 
The comparison of men in society to the members of 
a body was of course not new. With the Stoics in 
particular it was much in vogue. What was dis- 
tinctively Christian was the faith in the One baptizing 
and life-giving Spirit, the one uniting body of 
Christ, the one all-working, all-inspiring God. 

In ' Ephesians ' and Colossians the change comes 
not so much by an expansion or extension of the 
thought of each local Ecclesia as a body over a wider 
sphere as by way of corollary or application, so to 
speak, of larger and deeper thoughts on the place of 
the Christ in the universal economy of things, ante- 
cedent not only to the Incarnation but to the whole 
course of the world. According to St Paul, as Christ 
" is before all things and all things (ra irdvra) in Him 
consist" (Col. i. 17), so also it was God's purpose in the 
course of the ages " to sum up all things in Him, the 
things in the heavens and the things on the earth" 
(dvaK€(f>a\aLcoaacr8at Eph. i. IO: cf. Col. i. 20). Part 
of this universal primacy of His {irpcorevcov Col. i. 18), 
involved in His exaltation to the right hand of God 
as the completion of His Resurrection, was (Eph. i. 
22 i.) that God " gave Him as Head over all things 
to the Ecclesia which is His body, the iulfilment of 

10 — 2 



148 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 

Him who is fulfilled all things in all"; or as in 
Col. (i. 1 8) "Himself is the Head of the body, the 
Ecclesia." The relation thus set forth under a figure 
is mutual. The work which Christ came to do on 
earth was not completed when He passed from the 
sight of men : He the Head, needed a body of 
members for its full working out through the ages : 
part by part He was, as St Paul says, to be fulfilled in 
the community of His disciples, whose office in the 
world was the outflow of His own. And on the other 
hand His disciples had no intelligible unity apart 
from their ascended Head, who was also to them the 
present central fountain of life and power. 

Here, at last, for the first time in the Acts and 
Epistles, we have "the Ecclesia" spoken of in the 
sense of the one universal Ecclesia, and it comes more 
from the theological than from the historical side ; 
i.e. less from the actual circumstances of the actual 
Christian communities than from a development of 
thoughts respecting the place and office of the Son of 
God : His Headship was felt to involve the unity of 
all those who were united to Him. On the other 
hand it is a serious misunderstanding of these 
Epistles to suppose, as is sometimes done, that the 
Ecclesia here spoken of is an Ecclesia wholly in the 
heavens, not formed of human beings. In the closest 
connexion with the sentences just read St Paul in 
both Epistles goes on to dwell on the contrast be- 
tween the past and the present state of the Gentiles 



THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 149 

to whom he was writing (and in Eph. ii. 3, in the 
spirit of the early chapters of Romans, he intercalates 
a similar contrast as true of Jewish converts like 
himself), and describes these Gentiles as now " made 
alive with the Christ, and raised with Him, and made 
with Him to sit in the heavenly regions in Christ 
Jesus"; — difficult words enough, but clearly turning on 
the spiritual union of men actually on earth with One 
called their Head in the heavens. Moreover this 
passage of Colossians, by what it says (i. 20) of His 
making peace through the blood of His Cross, com- 
pared with Eph. ii. 13 — 18, shews that this new 
language about the Ecclesia was really in part 
suggested by the new assurance that Jew and Gentile, 
those near and those far off, were truly brought 
together in the one Christian brotherhood. 

Once more the identity of the Ecclesia before 
spoken of as 'the body of the Christ ' with actual 
men upon earth, is implied in Col. i. 24, when St Paul 
says, " Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake 
(i.e. assuredly, for the sake of you Gentiles), and then 
goes on " and fill up on my part that which is lacking 
of the afflictions of the Christ in my flesh for His 
body's sake which is the Ecclesia, whereof I was made 
a minister, according to the dispensation of God which 
was given me to youward " etc. 



150 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 

Husband and Wife. 

Again the unity of the Ecclesia finds prominent 
expression in various language used by St Paul on 
the relation of husband and wife (Eph. v. 22 — 33). The 
conception itself he inherited from the later prophets 
of the Old Testament, especially with reference to the 
covenant established between Jehovah and His people 
at Mount Sinai, e.g. Jer. ii. 2 ; Ez. xvi. 60 ; Is. liv. 5 
" Thy Maker is thine husband ; the Lord of hosts is 
His name and the Holy One of Israel is thy Re- 
deemer ; the God of the whole earth shall He be 
called." Language of this kind would easily fit itself 
on in due time to the Ecclesia of Israel for Greek- 
speaking Jews, or the 'edhah (fern.) for Hebrew-speaking 
Jews : it is involved in the allegorical interpretation 
eventually given by Jewish commentators to the Book 
of Canticles, but there is no reason to think that this 
interpretation was as old as the Apostolic age. St 
Paul had already applied the prophetic language or 
idea to single local Ecclesiae, that of Corinth (2 Cor. 
xi. 2 " I espoused you to one husband to present you 
to him a chaste virgin, even to the Christ"), and 
implicitly that of Rome (Rom. vii. 4). He had also 
in 1 Cor. xi. 3 expressed the relation of husband to 
wife by the image of the head, associating it in the 
same breath with a Headship of the Christ in relation 
to each man or husband, and a Headship of God in 
relation to Christ. The lowest of these three headships 



THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 151 

was probably suggested by the story of the origin of 
Eve in Genesis ; and the intermediate Headship was a 
natural application of the idea of the Christ as the 
second Adam, the true spiritual Head of the human 
race and so of each member of it : the word ' /cecfxikr) l 
doubtless borrowing for the purpose something of the 
largeness and variation of sense of the Heb. ro'sk. 

Now, in Eph. v. these various thoughts are brought 
together in order to set forth what high duties were 
by the Divine constitution of the human race involved 
in the relations of husband and wife. That Headship 
of the human race which was implied in the Christ's 
being called the Second Adam carried with it a forti- 
ori His Headship of the Ecclesia, that chosen portion 
of the human race, representative of the whole, which 
is brought into close relation to Himself, and is the 
immediate object of His saving and cherishing and 
purifying love, attested once for all by His willing 
self-sacrifice. St Paul's primary object in these 
twelve verses is to expound marriage, not to expound 
the Ecclesia : but it is no less plain from his manner of 
writing that the thought of the Ecclesia in its various 
higher relations was filling his mind at the time, and 
making him rejoice to have this opportunity of 
pouring out something of the truth which seemed to 
have revealed itself to him. If we are to interpret 
"mystery" in the difficult 32nd verse, as apparently 
we ought to do, by St Paul's usage, i.e. take it as 
a Divine age-long secret only now at last disclosed, 



152 THE ECCLESIA AS ONE. 

he wished to say that the meaning of that primary 
institution of human society, though proclaimed in 
dark words at the beginning of history, could not be 
truly known till its heavenly archetype was revealed, 
even the relation of Christ and the Ecclesia, which 
just before has been once more called His body, and 
individual Christians members of that body. Taking 
this passage in connexion with the various references 
to the Ecclesia which have preceded in the Epistle, 
it may be regarded as morally certain that the Eccle- 
sia here intended is not a local community, but the 
community of Christians as a whole. 



LECTURE X. 

'Gifts' and 'Grace! 

Having thus examined the chief passages of Ephe- 
sians, which now for the first time in St Paul's extant 
Epistles clearly set forth the conception of a single 
universal Ecclesia, we must return to the passages of 
various dates in which he expounds his doctrine of 
%a/cHoy*aTa, and exemplifies it by various functions 
within the Ecclesia. The three passages are I Cor. 
xii. 4 — n and 28 — 31 ; Rom. xii. 6—8; Eph. iv. 
7 — 12. 

The meaning of the terms. 

Xdpco-fjia comes of course from ^apl^o/uai, ; it 
means anything given of free bounty, not of debt, 
contract, or right. It is thus obviously used in Philo, 
and as obviously in Rom. v. 15, vi. 23 (the gift of God 
is eternal life) ; and less obviously but with I believe 
essentially the same force in the other passages of 
St Paul, as also in the only other New Testament 
place, 1 Pet. iv. 10. In these instances it is used to 



1 54 ' GIFTS ' AND < GRA CE.' 

designate either what we call 'natural advantages' 
independent of any human process of acquisition, or 
advantages freshly received in the course of Provi- 
dence ; both alike being regarded as so many various 
free gifts from the Lord of men, and as designed by 
Him to be distinctive qualifications for rendering 
distinctive services to men or to communities of men. 
In this sense they are Divine gifts both to the indi- 
vidual men in whom so to speak they are located, and 
to the society for whose benefit they are ordained. 
This conception underlies not only the passages of 
St Paul which refer directly to membership of a body, 
but the various usages of the remaining passages, in 
which on a superficial view the word might be sup- 
posed to be used arbitrarily. (The usage of the 
Pastoral Epistles we shall have to examine separately 
by-and-by.) Thus in Rom. xi. 29 ("The gifts and 
the calling of God are beyond repentance/' He cannot 
change His purpose in respect of them) we have a 
saying of the utmost universality respecting God's 
Xapicr/jbara in general, the special application being to 
the various privileges granted to Israel for the benefit 
of mankind. In 1 Cor. vii. 7 xdpto-fia is the proper 
gift which each man has from God as bearing on 
marriage or celibacy, probably with reference to what 
St Paul believed to be involved in his own special 
XcipiG-fia as the wandering herald of the truth to the 
Gentiles. In 2 Cor. i. 11 (cf. vv. 3—7, 9, 13 f.) it is his 
recent deliverance from impending death regarded as 



* GIFTS > AND ' GRA CE: 1 5 5 

a gift bestowed on him for the sake of the Gentiles to 
whom he had yet to preach. And in the anxiously 
reserved language of Rom. i. n it seems to be some 
advantage connected with his personal history and 
work, which he wished to share with the Romans 
(/ji€Ta86!)) by meeting them face to face, for the streng- 
thening of their faith (cf. I Thess. ii. 8). 

This conception of ^dp tafia is essentially the same 
as that of the talents in the Parable, if only we go 
behind the somewhat vulgarised modern associations 
of the word talents to its full sense in the Gospel ; 
with the difference that the Pauline x a P lcr l JbaTa > cover- 
ing the members of a body, have a more distinct 
reference to variety of use. Perhaps the clearest ex- 
position is St Peter's (i Pet. iv. 9 — 11, "Each, as he 
received a yapiayba, ministering it to one another as 
good stewards of a manifold bounty (%«/hto?) of 
God") ; the instances given being hospitality and 
teaching. The single fountain of God's bounty or 
grace is thus represented as dividing itself manifoldly 
through all the inequalities of human faculty and 
possessions, that it may be the better distributed by 
the individual men as stewards each of what he has 
received, that it may be for the benefit of the great 
household. 

It is important to notice that the associations 
connected with the term ' grace' as inherited by us 
from Latin theology, denoting a spiritual power or 



156 < GIFTS ' AND < GRA CE} 

influence, whether received by individuals according 
to their need or appropriated permanently to a sacred 
ordinance or a sacred office, whatever may be the 
truth of the idea in itself, are only misleading in the 
interpretation of the biblical language respecting 
%api% and yapiviia. The dominant conception of 
Xdpw in the Acts and the Epistles is the free bounty 
of God as exhibited in the admission of the Gentiles 
although they stood without the original covenant ; 
and this is constantly associated in St Paul's mind 
with the free bounty of forgiveness shown to himself 
the persecutor, making him the fittest of all heralds of 
the free %«/K9, so preeminently in his own person a 
recipient of %«/w. And moreover the language in 
which he is accustomed to speak of the %dpi^ shown 
(in biblical language ' given ') to him is by him trans- 
ferred to those parts or aspects of the %api$ shown to 
Christians generally which constitute separate x a P i(T " 
para. From this point of view it is well worth while 
to compare i Cor. iii. 10; Gal. i. 15, ii. 9; Rom. i. 5, 
xii. 3, xv. 1 5 ; Eph. iii. 2, 7, 8 ; and then to notice 
how in 1 Cor. i. 4 — 6 St Paul similarly thanks God, 
" for the grace of God which was given you in Christ 
Jesus ; that in everything ye were enriched in him, in 
all utterance and all knowledge,... so that ye fall short 
in no papier pa" : an d again how Rom. xii. 6, "having 
^apto-fiara in accordance with the %ap^9 that was 
given (shown) to us, different [x a P^ a f iaTa V > looks back 
to v. 3, and how Eph. iv. 7 looks back to iii. 2, 7, 8. 



4 GIFTS ' AND ' GRA CE.> 1 57 

Zife source of the i Gifts! 

To come now to the instances given of various 
^aptafjuara within the Ecclesia, or of the persons to 
whom such yapia^aia were assigned, we may look 
chiefly at 1 Cor. xii. and Eph. iv. First should be 
noticed the two verbs by which God's relation to the 
various functions is expressed in the two Epistles 
severally. In 1 Cor. the leading thought is of the 
Divinely ordained diversity of members in the Christ- 
ian body ; hence in v. 18 " God edero (not merely c set ' 
but ' placed/ set as part of a plan) the members, each 
one of them in the body as He willed " ; and so in v. 
28 the same verb is repeated with obvious reference to 
the preceding exposition, " And some God placed in the 
Ecclesia, first apostles, etc." In Ephesians the Divine 
%apis or free bounty is the leading thought, each 
function being pronounced to be a Divine gift. Ps. 
lxviii. 18, in the form in which it is quoted in v. 8, 
supplies the verb 'gave' ("and gave gifts to men"), 
and so St Paul proceeds, "And Himself gave some as 
apostles, and some as prophets, etc." The word 
Xaptafjia does not occur in Ephesians : but eScoxev in 
this connexion, associated with 77 %a/w, is exactly the 
ix a pt <7aT0 implicitly contained in y^apia^a, 

* Functions ' not formal ' Offices! 

Then come the functions themselves. Much pro- 
fitless labour has been spent on trying to force the 



158 'GIFTS 1 AND 'GRACE.' 

various terms used into meaning so many definite 
ecclesiastical offices. Not only is the feat impossible, 
but the attempt carries us away from St Paul's 
purpose, which is to shew how the different functions 
are those which God has assigned to the different 
members of a single body. In both lists apostles and 
prophets come first, two forms of altogether excep- 
tional function, those who were able to bear witness of 
Jesus and the Resurrection by the evidence of their 
own sight — the Twelve and St Paul — and those whose 
monitions or outpourings were regarded as specially 
inspired by the Holy Spirit. Each of these held one 
kind of function, and next to these in I Cor. come all 
who in any capacity were " teachers " (SiSdo-KaXoc) 
without any of the extraordinary gifts bestowed on 
apostles and prophets. In Ephesians this function is 
given in a less simple form. First there are " evange- 
lists," doubtless men like Titus and Timothy (2 Tim. 
iv. 5) and Tychicus and Epaphras, disciples of St Paul 
who went about from place to place preaching the 
Gospel in multiplication and continuation of his 
labours without possessing the peculiar title of apostle- 
ship. Probably enough in St Paul's long imprison- 
ment this kind of work had much increased. Then 
come " pastors and teachers," men who taught within 
their own community, and whose work was therefore 
as that of shepherds taking care for a flock. Here 
the list in Ephesians ends, while that in 1 Cor. pro- 
ceeds to various functions unconnected with teaching 



1 GIFTS' AND ' GRACE: 159 

and belonging rather to action, first, extraordinary 
powers and what St Paul calls gifts of healings ; then 
two types of ordinary services rendered to members 
of the community, first helps 1 (aimA^/^et?), anything 
that could be done for poor or weak or outcast brethren, 
either by rich or powerful or influential brethren or by 
the devotion of those who stood on no such eminence ; 
and secondly guidances 2 or governments (KvfiepvrjcreLs), 
men who by wise counsels did for the community what 
the steersman or pilot does for the ship. Then last 
comes an exceptional class of extraordinary powers or 
manifestations, neither properly didactic nor properly 
practical, what are called ' tongues'. The enumera- 
tion earlier in the chapter {vv. 8 — 10) not only omits 
apostles and helps and guidances, but, with other 
variations, seems to subdivide the function of teachers 
under three different qualifications, what are called 
"an utterance (X0709) of wisdom," "an utterance of 
knowledge," and " faith " : and in Rom. xii. there are 
analogous subdivisions, among which occurs "minis- 
tration " (hiaKovia), a very comprehensive word, 
including e.g. (1 Cor. xvi. 15) the way in which 
apparently the household of Stephanas laid them- 
selves out (era^av eavrovs) to be hospitable and 
helpful to Christian strangers visiting Corinth. 

1 Cf. Acts xx. 35 avTLXafip&vecrdcu tQp acrdevotivTuv, some places in 
LXX., but especially Ecclesiasticus [xi. 12 ; li. 7]. 

2 See especially its use in the LXX. version of Proverbs as the 
apparently exactly literal rendering of takhbuloth (see Del. on Prov. 
i. 5), three times rendered * wise guidance ' in R.V. 



160 'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE: 

All this variation of enumeration, and also the 
variation in the form of description (persons and so to 
speak things being terms of a single series), becomes 
intelligible and natural when we understand clearly 
that St Paul is not speaking at all of formal offices or 
posts in the Ecclesia, much less enumerating them. 
The chief reason why he seems to do this is because 
apostles stand at the head in the two chief lists, and 
the apostolate of the Twelve and St Paul was in an im- 
portant sense a definite and permanent office. But it 
was part of St Paul's purpose to shew that the service 
which they were intended to render to the Ecclesia 
of that age was on the one hand, as in the other 
cases, the service 1 of members to a body to which 
they themselves belonged, and on the other was too 
peculiar to be included under any other head. What 
is common in substance to all the terms of the series 
is that they are so many kinds of partial service, and 
from this point of view it was immaterial whether 
there were or were not definite offices corresponding 
to any or all of these kinds of service ; or again 
whether two or more kinds of service were or were 
not, as a matter of fact, ever performed by the same 
persons. Hence these passages give us practically no 
evidence respecting the formal arrangements of the 
Ecclesiae of that age, though they tell us much of the 
forms of activity that were at work within them, and 

1 Cf. i Cor. iii. 5 — 9, and indeed — 15, on Apollos and Paul. 



1 GIFTS' AND 'GRACE? 161 

above all illustrate vividly St Paul's conception of an 
Ecclesia and of the Ecclesia. 

The image of the 'Body! 

The passage of Ephesians which we have been 
examining (iv. 7 — n) begins the second portion of a 
section which rings with the proclamation of the great 
supreme Christian unities. But the purpose for which 
they are set forth is to sustain an exhortation on the 
fundamental practical duty attached to membership 
of the Christian body, to walk worthily of the vocation 
wherewith ye were called (explained by Col. iii. 15, 
" Let the peace of the Christ preside in your hearts, 
unto which ye were also called in [one] body " — better 
to read " in a body," i.e. to be members of a body) 
with all lowliness and meekness etc., giving diligence 
to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace : 
one body and one Spirit, he proceeds in the familiar 
words which seem to glide from exhortation addressed 
to Christians of a few cities of Asia into affirmation 
respecting the whole body of Christians. But it would 
seem as though he dreaded the very semblance of 
representing an Ecclesia of God as intended to be a 
shapeless crowd of lik^ and equal units. Accordingly 
he turns within, to claim as it were all varieties and 
inequalities as so many indications of divers functions 
needed to work together to a true unity. "To each 
one of us," he says emphatically ( f Ez/l Se evao-rcp fjfjb&v), 
" was given the grace according to the measure of the 

H. E. 11 



162 ' GIFTS' AND « GRACE? 

bounty of the Christ." Then comes the quotation 
from the Psalm and the rapid setting forth of apostles, 
prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers as so 
many various gifts of God to men ; and then in the 
same breath their present and their ultimate purposes ; 
their present purpose the fcarapTicr/jLoSy or perfecting 
and accomplishing of the saints (i.e. the individual 
members of the great community) unto a work of 
ministration (i.e. those more conspicuous functions 
were meant to train and develop analogous functions 
of ministration, in each and all) ; then secondly, as a 
single aim of this manifold accomplishing, the building 
up of the body of the Christ ; and finally, as the 
ultimate purpose of these processes, the attainment of 
all together (ol iravres), unto the unity of the faith and 
of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect 
[full-grown] man, unto a measure of stature [maturity] 
of [such as belongs to] the fulfilment of the Christ. 
Even here the sentence does not end. From the lofty 
heights of his own thought St Paul descends to its 
practical purport, the rising out of the old heathen 
state of distracted beguilement by unworthy teachers, 
and through a life of truthful intercourse one with 
another in the power of love (see 25 ff.) growing up 
into Him in all things who is the Head, Christ 
Then he ends with a description of the action so to 
speak of the Head on the body of the Ecclesia, the 
fitting together and knitting together of the whole, 
the spreading of life as from a centre through every 



1 GIFTS' AND < GRA CE.' 163 

joint by which it is supplied, the action of each part 
in due measure in appropriating and using the life so 
supplied, and as the result the growth of the Body 
unto building up of itself in the power of love. 

The image of l building! 

Twice here the image of the body has been sup- 
plemented by the image of building. In various 
forms this other image is widely spread through the 
apostolic writings, not only in the simple thought of 
building up as opposed to the contrary process of 
pulling down or dissolving and to the simulative 
process of puffing up ; but as exhibiting the ranging 
of human beings side by side so as to form together a 
stable structure of various parts, all resting on a 
foundation. But the ruling element in the idea comes 
naturally from the special purpose of the building. 
It is a dwelling-place or house, and its inhabitant is 
God ; so that it is further a sanctuary (mo?) or temple 
of God. When our Lord Himself said in the temple 
at Jerusalem, " Destroy (dissolve, Xvaare) this temple 
and in three days I will raise it up," interpreted by 
St John to refer to the temple of His body, He must 
surely have been chiefly thinking of that temple, that 
body of His which St Paul identifies with the Ec- 
clesia, for from the day of the Passion the temple of 
stones lay under doom. Such at all events was 
Stephen's teaching so far as the old temple is con- 
cerned, when to the words of 1 Kings viii. how Solomon 

11 — 2 



1 64 'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE.' 

built Jehovah a house, he added the comment, " How- 
beit the Most High dwelleth not in things made with 
hands," appealing to Is. lxvi. " Heaven is my throne," 
etc. Such was also the teaching of his persecutor 
and disciple St Paul when at Athens he repeated how 
the Creator, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth 
not in temples made with hands. The positive side 
of the same teaching we have in St PauPs adaptation 
of Lev. xxvi. in 2 Cor. vi. 16, " For we are a sanctuary 
of a living God, as God said, I will dwell in them and 
walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall 
be my people," where that second phrase, " and walk in 
them " marks the indwelling spoken of to be not of a 
carved image or of a vaguely conceived presence but 
of a living God. Here as also in the yet more 
familiar passage 1 Cor. iii. 16 f. ("Know ye not that 
ye are a sanctuary of God, and the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in you ? "), the individual local community is 
itself addressed as a sanctuary of God ; and the same 
conception, if we are not to disregard both grammar 
and natural sense, is expressed with great generality 
in Eph. ii. 21 f. "in whom [i.e. Christ Jesus as Corner- 
stone] each several building (R.V.) (iraaa ol/coSo/jbr)) 
fitly framed together groweth into a holy temple in 
the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together for a 
habitation of God in the Spirit." Indeed, if I mistake 
not, the thought of a universal spiritual temple of 
God is, to say the least, not definitely expressed 
anywhere by St Paul. 



' GIFTS' AND ' GRACE. 7 165 

The foundation of the Apostles and Prophets. 

Before we leave the language derived from a 
building, one very familiar phrase in Ephesians ii. 20 
claims notice, "built upon the foundation of the 
apostles and prophets," which may be interpreted and 
has been interpreted in several different ways. To 
find who are meant by the apostles and prophets we 
must first take this passage with another (iii. 5 f.), " the 
mystery of the Christ, which in other generations was 
not made known to the sons of men as it was now 
revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit, 
that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs and of the same 
body," etc. etc. The position of " prophets " as second 
in both places puts the Old Testament prophets out 
of the question, unless indeed they were likewise 
meant by " the apostles ", which in c. iii. is impossible. 
It seems to me that both the sense of both places and 
the collocation of words in c. iii. determine the apostles 
themselves to be the prophets meant. It is truly said 
that we cannot lay much stress on the absence of a 
second article before * prophets'; but in iii. 5 the 
prefixing of ayioc? and subjoining of avrov to diro- 
<tt6\ol<z is difficult to account for, if the prophets 
meant were a second set of persons. Such a passage 
as Gal. i. 1 5 1 is enough to suggest that St Paul 
regarded the office of the old prophets as in some 
way repeated in himself; and if we consider such 

1 Cf. Is. xlix. 1. 



166 < GIFTS' AND « GRACE? 

sayings of our Lord on the last evening as John xiv. 
26; xv. 26 f.; xvi. 13 ff. on the office of the second 
Paraclete in relation to the disciples, we must see 
that so far as the words had a first and special 
reference to the apostolic band, their witness-bearing 
to Christ was conditioned by the interpretative arid 
enlightening operation of the Holy Spirit, and further 
that utterances proceeding from such an operation 
exactly answer to what the Bible calls prophecy. In 
a word, the specially chosen disciples had need to be 
prophets in order to be in the strict sense apostles. 
The full revelation respecting the Gentiles to which 
St Paul refers in Eph. iii. 6 ff. was not obviously 
involved from the first in the charge to preach the 
Gospel to all nations. It was to St Paul himself 
doubtless that this prophetic illumination came in the 
first instance : but he might well rejoice to merge his 
own individuality in the concordant acceptance of 
what he had proclaimed by the twelve at Jerusalem, 
an acceptance which might well itself be referred to 
the inspiration of the prophetic spirit. The enumera- 
tion in iv. 11, "And Himself gave some to be apostles, 
and some prophets " is not a serious difficulty in the 
way of this interpretation, for, as we saw before, the 
enumeration is not of classes of persons or formal 
offices, but of classes of functions ; and though in the 
true sense there were no apostles but the twelve and 
St Paul, we know there were many others who were 
called prophets. 



1 GIFTS ' AND ■ GRA CE. } 167 

But in what sense were the heathen converts of 
Asia "built upon the foundation of the apostles and 
prophets"? The phrase might mean either the foun- 
dation on which the apostles and prophets had been 
built, or the foundation laid by them, or themselves as 
the foundation. That Christ Himself is here meant 
as the foundation, as 1 Cor. iii. 1 1 might suggest, is 
very unlikely, when the next clause makes Him 
cornerstone without any indication that there is a 
transition from one figure taken from building to 
another with reference to the same subject. The 
previous verse in 1 Cor. (iii. 10) and the other passage 
of Eph. (iii. 5) suggest that the apostles and prophets 
were the builders who laid the foundation ; but it 
remains difficult to see what foundation they can be 
said to have laid, in connexion with which Christ 
could be called a cornerstone. It would seem then 
that they themselves constituted the foundation in 
the sense which the Gospels led us to recognise, the 
chosen band of intimate disciples, the first rudi- 
mentary Ecclesia, on which the Ecclesia of Palestine 
was first built, and then indirectly every other 
Ecclesia, whether it had or had not been personally 
founded by an apostle. The reason why they are 
designated here by this full and double title is 
because the reference here is to the building up of 
Gentile Ecclesiae, and because the admission of the 
Gentiles on absolutely equal terms was in St Paul's 
mind associated with what were to him leading 



168 'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE: 

characteristics of apostleship and of prophecy under 
the New Covenant. 

The Universal Ecclesia and the partial Eeclesiae. 

We have been detained a long time by the im- 
portance of the whole teaching of ' Ephesians ' on the 
Ecclesia, and especially of the idea now first definitely 
expressed of the whole Ecclesia as One. Before 
leaving this subject, however, it is important to notice 
that not a word in the Epistle exhibits the One Eccle- 
sia as made up of many Eeclesiae. To each local 
Ecclesia St Paul has ascribed a corresponding unity 
of its own ; each is a body of Christ and a sanctuary 
of God : but there is no grouping of them into 
partial wholes or into one great whole. The members 
which make up the One Ecclesia are not communities 
but individual men. The One Ecclesia includes all 
members of all partial Eeclesiae ; but its relations to 
them all are direct, not mediate. It is true that, as 
we have seen, St Paul anxiously promoted friendly 
intercourse and sympathy between the scattered 
Eeclesiae ; but the unity of the universal Ecclesia as 
he contemplated it does not belong to this region : it 
is a truth of theology and of religion, not a fact of 
what we call Ecclesiastical politics. To recognise 
this is quite consistent with the fullest appreciation 
of aspirations after an external Ecclesiastical unity 
which have played so great and beneficial a part in 
the inner and outer movements of subsequent ages. 



' GIFTS > AND l GRA CEJ 1 69 

At every turn we are constrained to feel that we can 
learn to good effect from the apostolic age only by 
studying its principles and ideals, not by copying its 
precedents. 

I said just now that the one Ecclesia of Ephesians 
includes all members of all partial Ecclesiae. In other 
words, there is no indication that St Paul regarded 
the conditions of membership in the universal Ecclesia 
as differing from the conditions of membership in 
the partial local Ecclesiae. Membership of a local 
Ecclesia was obviously visible and external, and we 
have no evidence that St Paul regarded membership 
of the universal Ecclesia as invisible, and exclusively 
spiritual, and as shared by only a limited number 
of the members of the external Ecclesiae, thoso, 
namely, whom God had chosen out of the great mass 
and ordained to life, of those whose faith in Christ 
was a genuine and true faith. What very plausible 
grounds could be urged for this distinction, was to 
be seen in later generations : but it seems to me 
incompatible with any reasonable interpretation of 
St Paul's words. On the other hand, it is no less 
clear that this Epistle, which so emphatically ex- 
pounds the doctrine of the Christian community, is 
equally emphatic in recognition of the individual life 
of its members. The universal Ecclesia and the 
partial Ecclesiae alike were wholly made up of men 
who had each for himself believed, whose baptism 
was for each the outward expression of what was 



170 'GIFTS' AND 'GRACE? 

involved in his belief, for his past and for his future ; 
and who had a right to look on the fact that they 
had been permitted to be the subjects of this mar- 
vellous change, as evidence that they had each been 
the object of God's electing love before the founda- 
tions of the world were laid. 



LECTURE XL 

Titus and Timothy in the Pastoral 
Epistles. 

LEAVING now the Epistles of the Roman Captivity 
we come to the Pastoral Epistles. On the questions 
of their authenticity and integrity I shall say no more 
now than that in spite of by no means trivial 
difficulties arising from comparison of the diction 
of these and the other Epistles bearing St Paul's 
name, I believe them to be his, and to be his as they 
now stand. The supposed difficulties of other kinds 
seem to me of no weight. About St Paul's life after 
the time briefly noticed in the last verse of Acts, we 
know absolutely nothing from any other source 
beyond the bare fact of his death at Rome : and it 
is to the interval between the Roman Captivity 
mentioned in Acts and his death that the Epistles, 
with the recent incidents referred to in them, must 
assuredly belong. They differ essentially from all his 
Epistles except Philemon by being addressed to 
individual men, not to communities ; while they differ 



i 7 2 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 

no less from Philemon in having the welfare of 
Christian communities as indirectly a large part of 
their subject-matter. 

The interpretation of I Tim. iii. \\f. 

This is definitely expressed in an important passage 
which we may well consider first, as it is the chief 
passage in which the term €Kfc\r)<ria occurs, I Timothy 
iii. 14 f. " These things I write to thee, hoping to come 
unto thee shortly; but if I tarry long, that thou 
mayest know how men ought to behave themselves 
in a household of God, which is an Ecclesia of a 
living God, a pillar and stay of the truth." 

The A. V. (and R. V. marg.) rendering "how thou 
oughtest to behave thyself" is doubtless a survival of 
the Vulgate quomodo te oporteat y a translation of the 
Western ere. But though the special dvaarpofyr) of 
Timothy is included, the dvacrrpocfyTj of each class 
mentioned and of all members of the Ecclesia is 
likewise included. 'Kvaarpofyrj, for which there is no 
good English equivalent, includes all conduct and 
demeanour in converse with other men. Thus St 
Paul here describes his purpose in writing so as to 
point out what is a well-ordered life for Christian men 
in converse with each other. The force of the words 
that follow is only weakened and diluted by treating 
the absence of articles as immaterial. The close and 
obvious relations subsisting within each single Chris- 
tian community afford the framework, as it were, 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 173 

for the teaching ; and in instructing its members to 
regard it as invested with these high attributes St 
Paul was but doing as he had done to other Ecclesiae 
before. 

The ' house of God' here spoken of is doubtless 
not His dwelling-house or sanctuary but (as several 
recent commentators) His household 1 . It is the same 
ten verses back, " If a man knoweth not how to rule 
his own household, how shall he take care of an 
Ecclesia of God"? The same sense ' household' 
occurs also in Heb. iii. 5 f., x. 21 (from Num. xii. 7) 
and probably in 1 Pet. iv. 17. It is also implied in 
St Paul's own use of the adjective olfceios, probably 
in Gal. vi. 10, "them that are of the household of the 
faith"; certainly in Ephesians ii. 19, "fellow citizens 
with the saints, and of the household of God." Hence 
the dvacTTpocfcr} or converse described as the subject of 
this part of the Epistle, is the converse of members 
of a household of which God is the Householder or 
Master. 

Further it is described as " an Ecclesia of a living 
God." Often the (a) living God is spoken of in 
contrast to dead idols : but sometimes (e.g. Heb. iii. 
12 ; ix. 14 ; xii. 22) it implies a contrast with the true 
God made practically a dead deity by a lifeless and 
rigid form of religion ; with the God in short in whom 

1 The word 'house' is not incorrect, but only ambiguous : in Acts 
xvi. 34 both senses stand together, the jailor at Philippi brings Paul and 
Silas into his house, and rejoices greatly with all his house. 



174 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 

too many of the Jews virtually believed. Such is pro- 
bably the force here as it evidently is in iv. 10. 

The last designation here given to a local Chris- 
tian community is " a pillar and stay of the truth." 

There are few passages of the New Testament in 
which the reckless disregard of the presence or absence 
of the article has made wilder havoc of the sense than 
this. To speak of either an Ecclesia or the Ecclesia, as 
being the pillar of the truth, is to represent the truth 
as a building, standing in the air supported on a 
single column. Again there is no clear evidence that 
the rare word eSpaLco/jLa ever means 'ground 1 ' =" foun- 
dation." It is rather, in accordance with the almost 2 
universal Latin rendering firmamentum, a " stay " or 
"bulwark". 

St Paul's idea then is that each living society of 
Christian men is a pillar and stay of " the truth " as 
an object of belief and a guide of life for mankind, 
each such Christian society bearing its part in sus- 
taining and supporting the one truth common to all. 

But while at least two of the Pastoral Epistles, and 
in a certain sense all of them, have thus the Ecclesiae 
for themselves to a great extent as the subject 
matter, they are still more truly in substance no less 
than in obvious form, instructions to individual men, 



1 Probably translated by Tyndale from Luther's Grundfeste. 

2 Fundamentum occurs in Iren. lat. [in. i. i ; but possibly as a 
translation of GT-qpLyjia, see III. xi. 8. Ed.] 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 175 

having special responsibilities of leadership or guid- 
ance, and, as regards two of the Epistles, entrusted 
definitely with the special charge of Ecclesiae, though 
only for limited and temporary purposes. The pur- 
poses in the two cases were by no means identical, 
though they had much in common. 

The mission of Titus in Crete. 

The case of Titus is the simplest. He had been 
a convert from heathenism, made by St Paul himself 
(yvrjalcp re/cva, i. 4), we do not know in what region. 
St Paul had taken him with him from Antioch to 
Jerusalem at the time of the great conference, and 
had refused to yield to pressure and let him be cir- 
cumcised. He had employed him on a confidential 
mission to the Corinthian Ecclesia. This is all that 
is known of his antecedents : in the Acts he is not 
mentioned by name. After a long interval he now 
re-emerges into light, though only somewhat dim 
light. During a journey subsequent to the first 
Roman Captivity he had accompanied St Paul on a 
visit to the island of Crete. There are various indi- 
cations in the Epistle that the Christian faith must 
have gained ground in the island long before this time : 
but at what time, and by whose preaching, we know 
not. It would seem that St Paul found the state of 
things unsatisfactory, but that he had no time to stay 
in person to attempt to rectify it. Accordingly he 
left Titus behind to correct, he says, the deficiencies 



i 7 6 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 

and to appoint Elders in the several cities. Thus 
Titus was in this respect to do what Paul and 
Barnabas had done in the cities of Southern Asia 
Minor on their return from the first Missionary 
journey. But the circumstances were very different. 
The natural inference is that up to this time the 
Christians of Crete had gone on without any kind of 
responsible government, and that this anarchic con- 
dition was one considerable cause of the evidently 
low moral condition to which they had sunk. 
Accordingly the appointment of elders was a neces- 
sary first step towards raising the standard of 
Christian life generally. Zenas and Apollos were 
now starting on a journey in the course of which they 
were to touch at Crete, and so St Paul takes the 
opportunity of sending this letter, partly to remind 
Titus of the chief things to be attended to in this 
Mission, partly to prepare him for rejoining St Paul 
with all possible speed at Nicopolis so soon as 
Artemas or Tychicus should come to him. When 
2 Timothy was written, he had gone to Dalmatia 
(iv. 10). Why Artemas or Tychicus was to be sent 
to Titus, is not mentioned ; but in all probability 
whichever of them went was intended to take Titus's 
place, and give the scattered Ecclesiae of the island 
the benefit of a little longer superintendence till 
the newly appointed Elders should have gained some 
really effective influence under the difficult circum- 
stances of their new office. 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 177 

Timothy y s mission in Ephesus. 

The immediate occasion of Timothy's mission 
resembled that of Titus's mission. He too was 
evidently journeying with St Paul when they came 
to Ephesus, and the state of things in the Ephesian 
Ecclesia appeared to call for a longer and more 
comprehensive treatment than St Paul had himself 
time to apply, as he was journeying on to Macedonia. 
Accordingly he left Timothy behind, specially to 
resist the growth of certain barren and unprofitable 
teachings which were evidently gaining much ground 
at Ephesus. He was in hopes (iii. 14) of rejoining 
Timothy shortly, but in case of possible delay he 
desired to keep before Timothy's mind the true aims 
which he should follow in helping to guide the 
Ephesian Ecclesia into right and salutary ways. 

With the second Epistle we have little to do. It is 
silent about the affairs of an Ecclesia except so far' as 
they are involved in the qualifications of an evangelist 
and associate of St Paul. Much of the first Epistle is 
an outpouring of St Paul's thoughts for his cherished 
disciple, and the second Epistle is almost wholly of 
this character, with the added force that came from 
a sense of his own impending martyrdom. We do 
not even know with any certainty whether Timothy 
was still at Ephesus, though probably enough he 
was: that is, the supposition would harmonise with 
some of the details respecting other persons, though 

h. e. 12 



178 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 

in other respects the supposed indications are quite 
worthless. Wherever Timothy was, St Paul urges his 
making a point (<T7rov8acrov) of coming to him quickly 
(2 Tim. iv. 9), bringing Mark with him, for he was left 
alone. It is probable enough that the sending of 
Tychicus to Ephesus mentioned in iv. 1 2 was intended 
to carry on further Timothy's work there : but we 
learn no particulars. 

Timothy s antecedents. 

On the other hand a special interest attaches to 
the language used in several places of both Epistles 
respecting Timothy himself. Every one will remem- 
ber how closely he is associated with St Paul's labours 
and writings from the time of the ' second missionary 
journey' in Asia Minor, so that his name stands with 
St Paul, at the head of six of the earlier epistles, and 
occurs in two others of them. Behind this confiden- 
tial intercourse and cooperation, however, there lay 
the exceptional circumstances out of which they arose. 
These circumstances are but imperfectly known to us, 
but something of their significance comes clearly out 
in comparison of St Luke's account in the Acts 
(xvi. 1 — 4) and the language of the Pastoral Epistles, 
each of which illustrates the other. When Paul and 
Barnabas after returning from the Jerusalem Con- 
ference had been for some time preaching at Antioch, 
St Paul proposed to Barnabas that they should 
revisit the brethren in the various cities of Asia Minor 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 179 

where they had founded Ecclesiae. The dispute 
about Barnabas's cousin St Mark made it impossible 
to carry out the plan as first intended. Barnabas and 
his cousin went off to his native Cyprus. St Paul 
chose for his companion Silas, one of the Jerusalem 
envoys who had accompanied the returning Anti- 
ochian envoys, a man having prophetic gifts ; and 
"being commended" we read "to the grace of the 
Lord by the brethren, he (Luke does not say i they/ but 
' he ') passed through Syria and Cilicia confirming the 
Ecclesiae. In due time he reached Lycaonia, specially 
its cities Derbe and Lystra : " And behold " (says St 
Luke, a phrase which when writing in his own person 
and sometimes even in speeches he reserves for 
sudden and as it were providential interpositions 1 ), 
" And behold a certain disciple was there, Timothy by 
name, son of a Jewish woman that believed and a 
Greek father, one who had witness borne to him 
(ifjuapTvpeiTo) by the brethren that were at Lystra and 
Iconium : him St Paul willed to go forth with him 
(tovtov rjOekrjaev 6 Ylavkos avv aura* e^eXQelv) and he 
took and circumcised him, because of the Jews that were 
in those parts, for all of them {airavre^) knew that his 
father was a Greek. And as they (plural) went on 
their way through the cities they delivered them the 
Boyfiara to keep, which had been resolved on (tcetcpi- 
/juiva) by the apostles and elders that were at Jeru- 
salem ". This narrative needs but little paraphrase to 

1 See i. 10; viii. 27 ; x. 17 ; xii. 7. 

12—2 



180 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 

become transparent, as far as it goes. Timothy's 
Greek father like many Greeks and Romans of wealth 
or position in those days, had married a Jewish wife. 
He allowed his wife to bring up their boy in her own 
faith, but not to brand him with what to Greek eyes 
was the infamous brand of circumcision. As a result 
of the preaching of Paul and Barnabas on the former 
missionary journey, mother and son had passed from 
devout Judaism to the Christian faith, and the son 
came to be highly honoured by the Christians of 
more than one city. St Paul now resolved to take 
this young Timothy with him on his onward journey, 
and with this purpose (so the order clearly implies) 
he circumcised him in order to avoid giving a handle 
for misrepresentation to the Jews of those parts. In 
everything but the external rite Timothy was a bona 
fide Jew. If he was to go forth to stand by St Paul's 
side in Jewish synagogues as Barnabas the Levite 
had done, to have let him remain uncircumcised 
would have been to court the imputation of taking 
advantage of an accident of education to extend to a 
Jew the Pauline exemption of Gentiles from circum- 
cision. Yet it was a bold and startling act, and the 
fact that St Paul performed it, when he might have 
avoided it by choosing some other associate, shews 
that he must have had overmastering reasons indeed 
for fixing absolutely on this Lycaonian youth for a 
place of such peculiar responsibility. 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 181 

Timothys original appointment. 

What those reasons were Luke does not tell us, 
beyond the good testimony of Timothy's Christian 
neighbours. But an early verse (i. 1 8) of the first 
Epistle gives the clue. "This charge I commit to 
thee, my child Timothy, according to the prophecies 
which led the way to thee, that in them (i.e. in their 
power) thou may est war the good warfare, holding 
faith and a good conscience." "The prophecies 
which led the way to thee" this (R.V. marg.) is 
much the most natural rendering of Kara tcls 7rpo- 
ayovaas eVl <r& irpo^rela^. Doubtless it would be a 
strong phrase to use if the occasion referred to were 
the leaving behind at Ephesus, which is indeed by no 
means suggested by the very general words that 
follow of the good warfare, faith and a good con- 
science. But it fits in excellently with what his 
narrative suggests as at least a probable course of 
circumstances. The first missionary journey had 
been inaugurated at Antioch under circumstances of 
peculiar solemnity in which Paul and Barnabas were 
jointly charged with a momentous commission. The 
journey had been rich in fruitful results, which involved 
the opening up of a whole new world to be leavened 
by the Gospel ; and the new advance had been ratified 
after full consideration by the Twelve and by the 
Ecclesia of Jerusalem. The new journey was pre- 
ceded apparently by no fresh inauguration ; it came 



182 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 

simply from St Paul's spontaneous desire to revisit 
the Ecclesiae which they had jointly founded. But 
now the actual journey was begun under the most 
disheartening circumstances. Barnabas, whose name 
had originally stood first, had now withdrawn from 
the work immediately in hand, and St Paul might 
well feel that, while he must needs go forward, it must 
be with a sense of foredoomed failure unless the 
breach in what had been at the outset a Divinely 
appointed enterprise were in some way closed up by 
a no less Divine interposition. He had indeed Silas 
with him : but this was by his own selection, and 
apparently Silas stood on the same subordinate 
footing as Mark had originally done (xiii. 5 virrjpirrjv), 
though in the course of the journey the difference of 
footing seems to disappear. St Paul's words in the 
Epistle suggest that while he was journeying on in 
some such state of mind as this, mysterious monitions 
of the kind called prophetic seemed to come to him, 
whether within his own spirit, or through the lips of 
Silas, or both ; and that these voices taught him the 
course to take by which he should at last find a 
Divinely provided successor to Barnabas. Such 
prophecies as have been here supposed would in the 
strictest sense lead the way to Timothy, just as the 
heavenly voice in the vision seen by Ananias at 
Damascus led the way to Paul himself in the house of 
Judas in the street called Straight (ix. 10 f, 17), or 
the similar voice in the vision seen by Cornelius at 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 183 

Caesarea led the way to St Peter in the house of 
Simon the Tanner at Joppa. When at last St Paul 
reached Derbe and Lystra (Karrjvrrjaep is St Luke's 
expressive word, as though these cities were in some 
way a goal to him), the testimony which the young 
Timothy received from the brethren might well seem 
to be a human echo of a Divine choice already no- 
tified by prophecy. 

But we may reasonably go a step farther. If 
St Paul received Timothy as Divinely made the 
partner of his work in place of Barnabas, it would be 
at least not unnatural that there should be some 
repetition of the solemn acts by which human ex- 
pression had been given to the Divine mission in the 
first instance. If this explanation of "the prophecies" 
is right, they must on the one hand have in substance 
included some such message as " Separate for me 
Timothy for the work whereunto I have called him " ; 
and on the other hand that separation or consecration 
would naturally take outward form in fasting and 
prayer and laying on of hands by the representatives 
of the Lycaonian Ecclesiae, in repetition of what had 
been done at Antioch (xiii. 3). In this case however 
one additional element would be present, viz. the 
special relation in which St Paul stood to Timothy : 
he was Timothy's father in the faith, and his sub- 
sequent language shews that this essential fact was 
to be of permanent significance. It would be natural 
therefore that as Jewish Rabbis laid hands on their 



1 84 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 

disciples, after the example of Moses and Joshua, so 
not only the representatives of the Lycaonian Ecclesiae 
but also St Paul himself should lay hands on the 
disciple and spiritual son now admitted to share his 
peculiar commission. 

Timothy's %dpL<r/jLa. 

Taking with us these antecedents, we shall be in a 
better position to understand the verse (iv. 14) in 
which St Paul bids Timothy, "Neglect not the 
gracious gift {^aplafiaTo^) which is in thee, which was 
given thee (Sua 7rpo<jf>?7Te/a?), through prophecy with 
laying on of the hands of the body of Elders (tov 
Trpeafivrepiov). In i. 18 rd$ Trpoayovcras eiri cre 
TrpofyrjTeias would be an extraordinary phrase to 
describe prophecies the purpose of which was to 
induce St Paul to leave behind him at Ephesus his 
coadjutor and often companion of many years ; while 
Luke's narrative in Acts xvi. enables it to be so inter- 
preted as to give each word exact force ; and if the 
prophecies of i. 18 are the prophecies which accom- 
panied the early part of St Paul's second journey, it 
must be at least worth while to consider whether the 
reference is different in iv. 14. Now if we think of 
St Paul's own account of Timothy's present mission at 
Ephesus, and its temporary and as it were occasional 
character, we must see that a laying on of hands by 
the Ephesian elders (and it is difficult to think of any 
others on this supposition) would be scarcely a 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 185 

probable though no doubt a possible act under the 
circumstances, and the addition of prophecy does but 
increase the incongruity. 

If, however, the body of Elders meant was that 
formed by the Elders of Timothy's own city or 
neighbourhood, as representing the Ecclesia which 
sent him forward in conjunction with St Paul to win 
new regions for the Gospel, the irpo^reia spoken of 
is likewise explained by the prophecies of i. 18. 

So too what is said of the yapivna or gracious gift 
of God in Timothy, which had been given him by 
prophecy with the laying on of hands, harmonises well 
on this view with the idea running through all the 
Pauline uses of the word yapiaixa. It was a special 
gift of God, a special fitness bestowed by Him to 
enable Timothy to fulfil a distinctive function. Speak- 
ing generally the base of this function was preaching 
the Gospel to those who had not yet heard it, the 
work of an Evangelist. But it was further limited by 
the peculiar circumstances : Timothy was to be not 
merely an Evangelist, but St Paul's special associate 
in his quite unique evangelistic work. 

In its origin it was apparently a substitute for the 
function discharged by Barnabas on the first journey. 
But owing to the difference of age and personal 
history between Barnabas and Timothy it must from 
the first have involved a subordination to St Paul 
which did not exist in the case of Barnabas. And on 
the other hand the vast increase in both the range 



186 TITUS AND TIMOTHY 

and the importance of St Paul's personal work 
brought about by the force of circumstances since 
that time involved a corresponding expansion in the 
responsibilities laid on Timothy. An expansion but 
not a change of characteristics. It was still the 
original ^dpio-fia to and in Timothy which St Paul 
would fitly desire Timothy to kindle anew. 

In the second Epistle (i. 6) a similar admonition is 
couched in partly different language. Here St Paul 
passes from a thanksgiving to the God to whom he 
has himself done service as his forefathers had done 
(airo irpoyovcov) in a pure conscience, to the thought 
of the channels through which Timothy had in like 
manner inherited his unfeigned faith, his grandmother 
Lois and his mother Eunice. Then from this foun- 
dation laid in Timothy's childhood he seems to pass 
to that which had been built upon it. "For which 
cause (i.e. because I am persuaded that in thee also 
dwells unfeigned faith) I put thee in remembrance 
to wake into life (dva^coirvpelv) the yapuriia of God, 
which is in thee by the laying on of my hands : for God 
gave us (you Timothy and me Paul, us the heralds of 
His Gospel) not a spirit of fearfulness but of power 
and of love and of chastened mind. Be not therefore 
ashamed of the testimony (/maprvptov, usually testimony 
in act) of our Lord nor of me His prisoner, but suffer 
hardship with the Gospel" &c. Here the context 
excludes the thought of a x^P ia l iia meant specially 
for Ephesian administration or teaching, to which 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 187 

there is no allusion whatever. The antecedents of 
Timothy's ^dpta-fia lay in the atmosphere of unfeigned 
faith in which he had been bred up, a faith doubtless 
constantly put to severe trial through his mother's 
position as the wife of a heathen ; and the waking of 
Timothy's yapta-pa into fresh life now desired by 
St Paul was to shew itself in a spirit which should 
animate Timothy's whole personal being. 

It is therefore no wonder that in this second 
Epistle the laying on of hands of which he speaks is 
the laying on of his own hands. In 1 Timothy, the 
Epistle which teaches how men ought to behave 
themselves in an Ecclesia of a living God, it was 
natural, especially in the immediate context of iv. 14, 
that St Paul should make mention of the laying on of 
hands of the body of Elders of the Ecclesia which 
then sent Timothy forth. But in the second Epistle 
the personal relation between the two men is every- 
thing ; and so the human instrumentality to which he 
here refers, the reception of the ydpcafia or gracious 
gift which he [here] first describes emphatically as 
" the gracious gift of God," is that act, the traditional 
symbol of blessing, by which he, already Timothy's 
father in the faith and henceforth to have Timothy 
always joined with him as also a younger brother, had 
borne his part in solemnly inaugurating the beginning 
of his new career of duty. 

No passages in the least like those which we have 



1 88 TITUS AND TIMOTHY. 

been now examining occur in the Epistle to Titus. 
It is no doubt possible that this is due to accident. 
But it cannot be said that this Epistle is poor in 
contexts when such passages would be quite in place, 
supposing them to refer to matters concerning Titus 
as much as Timothy. It is moreover remarkable that 
language so similar should be found in quite different 
contexts in two Epistles, themselves so differing in 
character as I and 2 Timothy. All these circum- 
stances however explain themselves naturally if the 
passages in the two Epistles to Timothy refer to a 
single absolutely exceptional solemn act by which 
the one man Timothy received a commission to go 
forth as St Paul's chosen colleague, because a pro- 
phetic oracle had singled him out for this unique 
function. 



LECTURE XII 



Officers of the Ecclesia in the 
Pastoral Epistles. 

From Titus and Timothy themselves we pass 
naturally to the officers of the Ecclesiae of which 
they were set for a time in charge. 

In Crete, as we saw before, there were apparently 
no Elders previously; and the duty most definitely 
named as laid on Titus was to set (or establish or 
appoint) Elders in the several cities. The verb /cadia- 
rrjfiv is used in Acts vi. 3 for the Apostles setting or 
appointing the Seven over the business of attending 
to the widows of the Greek speaking part of the 
community at Jerusalem : it is a word implying an 
exercise of authority, but has no technical force. In 
1 and 2 Timothy it is not used, nor any other word 
approximately similar in sense. 



190 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

The qualifications of an Elder in Crete. 

The first qualifications mentioned (Titus i. 5 — 9) 
are not capacities but, so to speak, primary moral 
conditions affecting men's personal or family relations, 
" if a man is under no charge or accusation (aviy/cXriTos, 
probably not 'blameless' but 'unblamed'), the husband 
of one wife, having children that believe (i.e. Christian), 
who are not accused of riotous living, or, unruly. 

Then St Paul goes on, Ael yap rov eiriaKOTrov avey- 
fcXrjrov elvcu, " For the eV£cr/<;o7ro? must needs be under 
no charge." It is now pretty generally recognized by 
those who [do] not break up the Pastoral Epistles into 
fragments that we have not here a different office, 
held by one person in contrast to the plural ' Elders/ a 
view which implies an incredible laxity in St Paul's 
use of particles. But it is hardly less erroneous to 
take eVtcr/co7ro9 as merely a second title, capable of 
being used convertibly with Trpeafivrepos. In ex- 
amining the language of Acts xx. we found reason to 
think that when St Paul, addressing at Miletus those 
who in v. 17 are called the Elders of the (Ephesian) 
Ecclesia, says, "take heed to yourselves and to all 
the flock in which the Holy Spirit set you as iiri- 
o-kottov^" he used this word as descriptive, not as a 
second title, so that we might render it " set you to 
have oversight." It is exactly the same here, only on 
clearer evidence. If eiricrKoirov is a title of office, the 
article before it is without motive, and aveyicXrjTov 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 191 

elvai following it is a tame repetition when ei Tt<? 
early aveyfcXrjro? has preceded. But taken descrip- 
tively it supplies a link which gives force to every 
other word. *A man who is to be made an Elder 
should be one who is dvey/cXrjro^y for (yap) he that 
hath oversight must needs be avey/cXrjTo? as a steward 
of God/ ' Elder' is the title, 'oversight' is the function 
to be exercised by the holder of the title within the 
Ecclesia. The nature of the oversight is not defined 
except as being that exercised by a steward in a 
household of God. But, as we saw before, the general 
conception of the word is closely akin to that 
suggested by the pastoral relation, if we are to take 
as our guides the usage of the LXX. the Apocrypha 
and Philo, and especially 1 Pet. ii. 25 top iroiybkva 
kcl\ erricTKOTTOv tcop ^y^wp v/jlcov. 

Then follow five negative moral qualifications, " not 
self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no 
striker, not greedy of filthy lucre " ; then six positive 
moral qualifications (the first alone worthy of special 
comment), "given to hospitality (lit. a lover of strangers, 
<$>iX6%€vov\ a lover of good, soberminded, just, holy, 
temperate." 

Last comes a quite different qualification, "holding 
fast (if that is the meaning here of the difficult word av- 
rexopevov) by the word which is faithful according to 
the teaching (S^Sa^i/), that he may be able both to 
exhort in the doctrine (hihaafcaXia) that is healthful 
and to convict the gainsayers." Without pausing at 



192 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

the various difficulties of this verse, we can see that at 
least it requires in the Cretan Elders a hold on 
Christian principles of at least morality or religion, 
such as would enable them to give hortatory instruc- 
tion of a salutary kind to all, and likewise to give 
competent answers to gainsayers, who are described 
more particularly in the following verses. On "the 
doctrine that is healthful " I may be able to say a word 
farther on 1 . It is clear that St Paul here contemplates 
his Elders as having (at least normally) an office of 
teaching, both of a positive and of a negative kind. 
Apart from this, and from what may be included in 
the comprehensive words ' having oversight/ it is 
difficult to find any distinctive characteristics men- 
tioned. The moral qualities, positive and negative, 
are such as men officially representing the Ecclesia 
and having charge of its members would be expected 
to shew more than other men. But they are no less 
among the obvious qualities to be looked for in all 
members of the community. If hospitality seems at 
first sight a virtue specially pertaining to the leading 
men of the Ecclesia, we must also remember how it is 
inculcated on all alike in Rom. xii. 13, 1 Pet. iv. 9, 
Heb. xiii. 2. Respecting any other officers than the 
Elders Titus receives no directions. 

1 See p. 220. 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 193 

Elders in Ephesus according to I Timothy. 

The same subject is approached in a very different 
way in 1 Tim., as might be expected from the 
different circumstances. The earlier of the specific 
charges given by St Paul to Timothy, which begin 
with chap, ii., will need a word further on. Having 
spoken on prayer, and on men and women, St Paul 
comes in iii. 1 to another theme affecting the 
Ephesian Ecclesia, " If any man seeketh after iiri- 
cncoirf}*; (a function of oversight), he desireth a good 
work. He therefore that hath oversight must needs 
be free from reproach (Set ovv tov ^ttictkottov aveiri- 
XrjfjLTTTov ehai)" So I think we should naturally 
interpret the words in any case on account of the 
article. But if the passage stood alone we could not 
tell whether the office intended was one held by one 
person or by many, and the influence of later usage 
might naturally suggest that it was held by one, i.e. 
was what we call an episcopate. In v. 17 fif. there are 
some secondary references to Elders, but nothing to 
shew either identity with the eTrLatcoTros of chap. iii. 
or their difference. Again the seven careful verses on 
him that hath oversight (iii. 1 — 7) are followed by six 
equally careful verses on Btd/covoi, whom we may for 
convenience call ' deacons \ Now if the eiriaKoiro^ of 
this Epistle were a single officer, superior to all others, 
the only way of accounting for St Paul's passing next 
to the hudicovoL, neglecting the Elders here, and dealing 

H. E. 13 



194 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

with them in a quite different way farther on, would 
be to suppose, as some have of late on other grounds 
supposed, that the eiriaKoiro^ and htaicovoi exercised 
one kind of functions and the Elders exercised another 
altogether different. But none of these suppositions 
can stand in the face of Tit. i., for the correspondence 
of language forbids us to give the word an essentially 
different sense in the two passages. It follows that 
the two consecutive careful passages in iii. refer 
to Elders and to hiaicovoi respectively, and that the 
references to Elders by name in chap. v. are, as we 
should expect, practically supplementary in cha- 
racter. 

In this Epistle Paul is not providing for the 
institution of an order of Elders but giving instruction 
respecting a long existing order. Throughout these 
verses (iii. I — 13) there is not a word addressed to 
Timothy, directing him what he himself should do 
in respect of men holding these offices. There is 
simply, as in all the earlier part of the Epistle, a 
setting forth in general terms of what ought to be. 
But it is remarkable how considerably the qualifi- 
cations recited here agree in essentials with the 
qualifications laid down in respect of Crete, though 
there are many differences both of words and of ar- 
rangement. The only negative qualities here men- 
tioned are " no brawler (violent, petulant person), no 
striker"; the omissions generically being of funda- 
mental qualities too obvious to be forgotten at 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 195 

Ephesus, such as the final triad "righteous, holy, 
temperate " ; while the moral qualities now added are 
of the calm and peaceful type. The long final clause 
of Titus about teaching is replaced by the single 
word BiSafCTtfcov, " apt to teach," in the middle of the 
list, following " a lover of hospitality ", while at the 
end of this list stands now the clause "one that 
ruleth well his own house, having his children in 
subjection with all gravity " (expounded further in the 
next verse). Then come two other qualifications, 
one negative, " no novice (yeo$>vTov\ lest he be puffed 
up/' etc.; and one positive, in a separate sentence, 
" Moreover he must be well witnessed of by them 
that are without," etc., an emphatic expansion and 
extension of the first requirement, that he be without 
reproach. Here too we learn singularly little about 
the actual functions, except what is contained 
in the former word ' oversight', and in the phrase 
"have charge (eVt/xeX^VeTtu) of an Ecclesia of 
God." Doubtless it was superfluous to mention 
either the precise functions or the qualifications 
needed for definitely discharging them. What was 
less obvious and more important was the danger lest 
official excellencies of one kind or another should 
cloak the absence of Christian excellencies. To St 
Paul the representative character, so to speak, of 
those who had oversight in the Ecclesia, their con- 
spicuous embodiment of what the Ecclesia itself was 
meant to shew itself, was a more important thing 

13—2 



196 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

than any acts or teachings by which their oversight 
could be formally exercised. 

Before we consider the Ziclkovoi who are mentioned 
next, it will be best to take what further is said of 
the Elders in chap. v. The ' Elder 5 of v. I is doubtless 
one so called not for any office or function but merely 
for age. It is otherwise in vv. iy y 18, " Let the Elders 
that preside excellently (/ea\a5? Trpoeo-rdore^) be counted 
worthy of double honour, especially they that labour 
(fcoTrtdovTes, i.e. not merely work, but work laboriously) 
in speech and teaching ; for the Scripture saith, 
' Thou shalt not muzzle an ox that treadeth out the 
corn ' and ' The labourer is worthy of his hire/ " This 
word * irpoecrTtoTes' standing at the head, includes 
more than "ruling" (so all English versions). The 
sentence implies that this was a function common to 
all the Elders. Those who discharged it not merely 
well (ev) but /ea\o>9, excellently, are to be esteemed 
worthy of double honour, an honour exceeding that 
due to their office ; and such honour, he hints, should 
be shown by a care on the part of the Ecclesia not to 
neglect the maintenance of those who labour on its 
behalf. Special honour, St Paul adds, is due to those 
Elders, coming under this description, who labour 
in speech and teaching. The distinction implies with 
tolerable certainty that teaching was not a universal 
function of the Elders of Ephesus. On the other 
hand, the language used does not suggest that there 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. i<;7 

were two separate and well-defined classes, teaching 
Elders and non-teaching Elders. Teaching was doubt- 
less the most important form in which guidance and 
superintendence were exercised. But to all appear- 
ance the Ephesian Ecclesia used freely the services of 
men who had no special gift of this kind, but who 
were well qualified to act as Elders in other respects. 

Then in v. 19 comes the converse case of Elders 
worthy not of praise but of blame. First, an Elder's 
office and position should secure him against coming 
into suspicion through mere random talk : Timothy, 
now first addressed directly in this connexion, was 
to give attention to no accusation which was not 
supported by the security provided by the Jewish 
law in accordance with manifest justice, the testimony 
of three or at the least two witnesses. On the other 
hand, those who sinned (in this context it can hardly 
be doubted that the reference is to Elders who sinned) 
Timothy was to rebuke publicly, that the rest also 
might have fear. 

In all this Timothy is manifestly clothed for the 
time with a paramount authority, doubtless as the 
temporary representative of St Paul guided by St 
Paul's instructions, St Paul himself having the au- 
thority of a founder, and that founder one who had 
seen the Lord Jesus. But he is not content to leave 
these instructions about Elders without a further 
warning. In an adjuration of peculiar solemnity, as 
though guarding against a danger which might only 



198 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

too easily invade Timothy, he charges him against 
letting himself be guided in these matters by any 
praejudicium, and especially against meting out honour 
or censure on the ground of his own personal 
preferences. 

What is required of i Deacons! 

Returning now to chap, iii., after the seven verses 
on "him that hath oversight," viz. one of the 
presbyters, we read in a sentence which has no 
principal verb (the 8eZ elvai being carried on from ii.), 
"AidtcovoL in like manner [must be] grave, not double- 
tongued 1 ," 8t\6yov^ not addicted to much wine, 
not given to filthy lucre, having the secret of their 
faith in a pure conscience [said probably with special 
reference to their opportunities for dishonest gain]; 
and let these also [these Sidtcovot,, no less than the 
Elders] first be proved, then let them minister (act 
as hidfcovou) if they lie under no accusation. Then 
comes, "Women in like manner (evidently not as 
A.V. the wives of Sid/covoi, but as Bishop Lightfoot 
shewed forcibly some years ago at a Diocesan 
Conference, women who are StaKovot), grave, not 
backbiters, sober (probably as Bishop Ellicott in the 
literal sense, vrjcfiaXiovs), faithful in all things." These 
four qualities are either repetitions or characteristic 
modifications of the four moral qualities required for 

1 Or perhaps * tale-bearers ' ; see Lightfoot on Polyc. 5. 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 199 

7nen who are Slcckovol ; gravity (crefivoTrjs;) being 
required of both, freedom from backbiting answering 
to freedom from talebearing, soberness, freedom from 
addiction to much wine, and faithfulness or trust- 
worthiness in all things to freedom from filthy lucre. 
Then St Paul returns once more to the men hidicovoi 
in order to lay stress on the importance of their 
conduct of their own family relations. " Let Bcd/covoc 
be husbands of one wife, ruling (or guiding, TrpolaTd- 
jjievot) their children well and their own households. 
For they that have ministered (served as $id/covoi) 
well gain to themselves a good standing (^aOfiov) and 
great boldness in the power of faith, even the faith 
that is in Christ Jesus." 

This is all that we learn about Sidfcovoi from the 
Pastoral Epistles. The Epistle to Titus in prescribing 
the appointment of Elders says nothing about Scd/covoi. 
Probably the Christian communities of Crete were 
not yet mature enough to make the institution as 
yet desirable. 

Taking the six verses together, it is clear that we 
have to do not with mere voluntary rendering 
services of whatsoever kind, but with a definite class 
of men, not merely ministering to the Ecclesia or its 
members but formally recognised by the Ecclesia as 
having an office of this kind. This is implied partly 
in the parallelism to the Elders just above, partly in 
the imperative form, partly in the requirement of 
probation, whether that means probation in the work 



200 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

itself or careful examination of qualifications and 
antecedents. The moral requirements are substantially 
the same as for the Elders, so far as they go, except that 
these alone include the absence of talebearing for the 
men, backbiting for the women, faults which evidently 
might easily have place in men who came much in 
contact with various individual Christians and families, 
but less so in men entrusted with oversight and 
teaching. On the other hand we find nothing cor- 
responding to three marked qualifications of Elders, 
viz. cheerful hospitality, capacity for teaching, and 
freedom from reproach or accusation, to say nothing 
of positive good testimony from outsiders, while on the 
other hand equal stress is laid in the two cases on 
the domestic qualifications implied in " a husband of 
one wife" (however we interpret this ambiguous phrase) 
and in " excellent control of children and household/' 
Evidently a man whose own family constituted a bad 
example for the rest of the community was to be held 
disqualified for either kind of office in the Ecclesia, 
whatever his personal capacities might be. It is a 
striking illustration of what is practically taught by 
many parts of the Apostolic Epistles, that the true 
Ecclesiastical life and the true Christian life and the 
true human life are all one and the same. To return 
to the three omissions. The silence about freedom 
from reproach or accusation in the case of the 
Stdfcovot explains itself if their work, unlike the Elders ', 
had usually little publicity or conspicuousness. So 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 201 

too the silence about hospitality is natural for men 
whose place in the Ecclesia did not seem to impose 
this as a duty upon them more than on the members 
of the community generally. The silence about 
teaching may in like manner be safely taken as 
sufficient evidence that teaching formed no part of 
the duty of a Sodfcovo?. 

The clause " holding the mystery of the faith in 
a pure conscience/' cannot when carefully examined, 
be safely interpreted as having reference to a mystery 
of doctrine which they are to * hold ' in the sense of 
'holding fast/ To fjbvarrjptov rfjs iriareco^y undoubtedly 
a difficult phrase, is probably (as Weiss explains it) 
the secret constituted by their own inner faith, not 
known to men but inspiring all their work ; and then 
the stress lies on "in a pure conscience" (see the 
association of faith and a pure or good conscience in 
i. 5, 19). Thus in this clause a true inward religion 
and a true inward morality are laid down as required 
for the office of Stdfcovot ; that is, the external nature 
of the services chiefly rendered by them was not to 
be taken as sanctioning any merely external efficiency. 
The lowest service to be rendered to the Ecclesia and 
to its members would be a delusive and dangerous 
service if rendered by men, however otherwise active, 
who were not themselves moved by the faith on 
which the Ecclesia rested and governed by its 
principles. This however has nothing to do with 
teaching on the part of the Scd/coroc, to which there is 



202 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

no reference in the whole passage. On the other 
hand we may safely say that it would have been 
contrary to the spirit of the Apostolic age to prohibit 
all teaching on the part of any Scdfcovot who had 
real capacity of that kind. But this would be no part 
of their official duty, and so it naturally finds no 
mention here. 

The last verse, iii. 13, has been often understood 
to say that excellent discharge of the duties of a 
htaicovos would rightly entitle him to promotion to a 
higher kind of work, doubtless that of an Elder. 
Badfios undeniably means a step, and so might easily 
be used for a grade of dignity and function. But the 
rest of the verse renders this interpretation unnatural ; 
and the true sense doubtless is that Scd/covot by excel- 
lent discharge of their duties may win for themselves 
an excellent vantage ground, a "standing" (R.V.) a 
little, as it were, above the common level, enabling 
them to exercise an influence and moral authority to 
which their work as such could not entitle them. 

The words hidicovQ<z and Stafcovia. 

We must turn now to the word or words by which 
their function is designated. The primary sense of 
8id/covo$ y as it meets us in Greek prose literature 
generally, is a servant or slave within the household, 
whose chief duty consists in waiting on his master at 
table, and sometimes in marketing for him. Origin- 
ally perhaps he was a messenger : but if so, that 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 203 

sense was at least too obsolete long before the 
Christian era to be important to us. Further, to 
Greek 1 ears the word almost always seems to suggest 
relatively low kinds of offices, whether rendered (in 
the literal original sense) to a master, or (figuratively) 
to a state. Our word * menial ' nearly answers to the 
sense thus practically predominant. It is a strange 
mistake of Archbishop Trench's (his article on this 
word and its synonyms being indeed altogether less 
careful than usual) to say that hiaicovos does not 
represent the servant in his relation to a person. 
The true proper Greek sense is preserved in several 
places of the Gospels, e.g. Lk. xii. 37, " he shall gird 
himself, and make them sit down to meat, and shall 
come and serve them " {hiaKovrjaet clvtoU) ; or again, 
xxii. 26 f. And this last passage leads to what is 
really the same sense in the great saying (Mt. xx. 28 
|| Mk.), "The Son of man came not to be ministered 
unto but to minister." 

One great exception there is to the Greek con- 
tempt for all pertaining to a Std/covo?, but it is an 
exception in appearance only, it is used of Athenian 
statesmen who had saved their country. Aristeides 2 

1 Two or three passages of Plato in particular bring out the associa- 
tion connected with it : Gorg. 518 a, 521 a; Rep. 370 f. In Gorg. 518 A 
we have the significant series of epithets dov\o7rp€7T€is re Kal dicucopiKas 
Kal aveXevdtpovs. There are clear echoes of these passages in the same 
sense long after in Plut. Mor. 11. 794 a and Aristeid. Orat. 46 (pp. 152 f., 
187, 193)5 and doubtless elsewhere; and the same feeling shews itself 
in a number of passages in Aristotle's Politics, 

2 Orat. 46, pp. 198 f. 



204 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

refuses to call them Sidfcovot of the state, but 
will gladly call them Statcovoi of the Saviour Gods 
who had used their instrumentality ; and in several 
remarkable passages Epictetus (Diss. iii. 22, 69 ; 24, 
65; iv. 7, 20; cf. iii. 26, 28) makes it the truest dignity 
of a man to be a Sid/covos of God. The Gospel gave 
the word a still higher consecration of the same kind. 
The Christian, even more than the Jew, felt himself 
to be the servant of a heavenly Lord, nay of a Lord 
who had taken on Himself the form of a servant ; 
and thus for Him every grade and pattern of service 
was lifted into a higher sphere. It would be su- 
perfluous to enumerate the passages in which men are 
called Sid/covoL of God or of Christ, the least obvious 
being Rom. xiii. 4, when the civil magistrate bears 
this title. Ministration thus became one of the 
primary aims of all Christian actions (cf. Eph. iv. 12 ; 

1 Pet. iv. 10 f. ; 1 Cor. xii. 5 ; Rom. xii. 7). Apostle- 
ship, the highest form of ministration, is repeatedly 
designated thus (Acts i. 17, 25; xx. 24; xxi. 19; 

2 Cor. iv. 1; v. 18; vi. 3 (cf. 4); Rom. xi. 13); 
sometimes with the special reference ministration " of 
the Gospel" (Eph. iii. 7; Col. i. 23); or "of the 
Ecclesia" (Col. i. 25). But naturally Apostleship 
does not stand alone in this respect. In 1 Cor. iii. 5 
St Paul calls Apollos and himself alike Std/covot, 
through whose instrumentality the Corinthians had 
believed. In 2 Tim. iv. 5 Timothy is bidden, "Be 
thou sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 205 

of an evangelist, bring to fulfilment (ir\7]po^>6prjaov) 
thy ministration"; and the Colossian Christians (Col. 
iv. 17) are bidden to tell Archippus, "Look to the 
ministration which thou receivedst in the Lord, that 
thou fulfil it" (TrXrjpols). 

Again, there are a few passages in which the 
words are used very differently, viz. for ministrations 
rendered not to God but to St Paul himself. Thus 
Acts xix. 22 calls Timothy and Erastus Svo tcov 
Siclkovovvtcov avTcp on the occasion of his sending 
them forward from Ephesus to Macedonia. It is 
probably in the same sense that Tychicus is called 
not only a beloved brother but a faithful Std/covo? in 
the Lord (Eph. vi. 21 ; Col. iv. 7). So in 2 Tim. 
(iv. 1 1) St Paul calls Mark right useful to himself eh 
Sia/coviav, and tells Philemon (13) how he had 
purposed to keep with him Onesimus iva virep aov 
pot hiaKovrj in the bonds of the Gospel ; and appeals 
to Timothy's knowledge (2 Tim. i. 18) how great had 
been the ministrations of Onesiphorus at Ephesus, 
evidently (as the context shews) chiefly though 
perhaps not exclusively to St Paul himself. 

It is doubtful whether this last ministration of 
Onesiphorus to St Paul was by public labours of 
some kind or by personal attendance and help to 
St Paul as a man. At all events this latter sense is 
likewise amply represented in the Acts and Epistles 
with reference to the supply of material wants, thus 
connecting itself directly with what we saw to be the 



206 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

most exact sense of these words in Greek daily life. 
A specially interesting passage for our purpose is 
Acts vi. i, 2, 6, the account of the institution of the 
Seven at Jerusalem. The widows of the Greek- 
speaking Jews, we hear, had been neglected (eV rfj 
hiaicoviq rfj fcaOTjfiepivf}), the daily provision of food 
for the poor at a common table. The Twelve object 
to leaving the Word of God in order Sia/covelv 
rpairi^ai^, and propose by the appointment of the 
Seven to be able to devote themselves to prayer and 
rfj StaKovca rod \6<yov. This last phrase is probably 
used in intentional antithesis to the ministration of 
tables or of meat and drink, to indicate that the 
Twelve were not refusing to accept the evangelical 
function of ministering, but only to neglect the mini- 
stration of the higher sustenance for the sake of the 
lower sustenance. In Acts xi. 29, xii. 25, the mission 
of Barnabas and Saul from Antioch to carry help to 
the brethren of Judea in the famine is called a Siafcovla; 
and St Paul himself several times uses the same word, 
usually with tols ayiots or et'9 tovs ayuovs added, for 
the Gentile collections for a similar purpose which 
occupied so much of his thoughts at a later time 
(Rom. xv. 25, 31; 2 Cor. viii. 4; ix. 1, 12, 13). 

Another instructive passage is 1 Cor. xvi. 15, 
" Now I beseech you, brethren (ye know the house of 
Stephanas, that it is a firstfruit of Achaia, and [that] 
they laid themselves out eh Siafcovlav tol$ a<yioi<;\ — 
[I beseech you] that ye also be subject {vTroTaacr^ade) 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 207 

to such, and to everyone that helpeth in the work and 
laboureth." These words suggest that Stephanas was 
a wealthy or otherwise influential Corinthian who 
with his household made it his aim to use his position 
for the benefit of Christians travelling to Corinth from 
a distance, all of whom in Apostolic language were 
saints or holy, as all alike members of a holy com- 
munity, and consecrated to a holy life. Services like 
these rendered by a man of social eminence made it 
good for the members of the Corinthian Ecclesia to 
look up to him as a leader. He was in fact affording 
an example of what St Paul meant by Trpotard/xevo^ 
in Rom. xii. 8. The same kind of service is implied 
under other words in what is said of Prisca and 
Aquila in Rom. xvi. 3 f. And so we come to Phoebe, 
the subject of the two preceding verses, Rom. xvi. 1 f. 
" But I commend to you," St Paul writes, " Phoebe our 
sister, who is also a 8id/covos of the Ecclesia that is at 
Cenchrese ; that ye receive her in the Lord worthily 
of the saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever 
matter she may have need of you : for she herself 
also shewed herself a irpocnaTLs (patroness) of many, 
and of mine own self." These last words shew pretty 
plainly that Phoebe was a lady of wealth, or position. 
She had been a irpoardrt^ of many, including St Paul. 
It is most unlikely that St Paul would have applied 
to her a word suggestive of the kind of help and 
encouragement given by wealthy benevolent people 
to dependents or helpless strangers if she had been 



208 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

only a humble member of the community, who 
shewed kindness to other Christians no more favour- 
ably placed. We may safely conclude that what 
Stephanas had done at Corinth she had done at 
Cenchreae, its seaport on the east, nine miles off. 
But if this was her position, it is certainly possible, 
but hardly likely, that huatcovov rf 9 ifCKXrjaias etc. 
means "a deaconess of the Ecclesia that is at 
Cenchreae." The koX before Bcd/covov, which is almost 
certainly genuine, points likewise to this term as 
conveying not a mere fact about Phoebe but a second 
ground of commendation parallel to her being one 
whom St Paul admitted to the distinction of being 
called his sister (as he spoke of Timothy and others 
as 6 aSeX<£o<?). Hence we may naturally take it in 
the ordinary, not the later technical sense, as one who 
ministered to the Ecclesia at Cenchreae, the nature of 
the ministration being described in the next verse. 
To call her a hiaicovov meant thus what was meant by 
saying that the house of Stephanas laid themselves 
out eh Siatcoviav. One passage more, from a later 
writer, remains. The Hebrews are assured (Heb. vi. 
10) that " God will not forget their work and the love 
which they shewed, looking unto His name, in that 
they had ministered to the saints, and still did 
minister." 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 209 

The function of i Deacons ' in Ephesus. 

It can hardly be doubted that the officers of the 
Ephesian ifc/cXrjcrla, who in I Tim. are called Bcd/covot, 
had for their work in like manner, chiefly, perhaps 
even exclusively, the help of a material kind which 
the poorer or more helpless members of the body 
received from the community at large. It is difficult 
to account for the word, used thus absolutely, in any 
other way. They would share with the Elders the 
honour and blessing of being recognised ministers of 
the Ecclesia. But that would be nothing distinctive. 
Ministration to the bodily wants of its needy members 
would be distinctive, and would obviously tally with 
the associations most familiar to Greek ears in 
connexion with the word. The analogy of the Seven 
at Jerusalem points the same way. There is, of 
course, no evidence for historical continuity between 
the Seven and either the Ephesian Sid/covot or the 
developed order of Deacons of later times. The New 
Testament gives not the slightest indication of any 
connexion. But the Seven at Jerusalem would of 
course be well known to St Paul and to many others 
outside Palestine, and it would not be strange if the 
idea propagated itself. Indeed analogous wants 
might well lead to analogous institutions. There is 
very little reason to think that the huaicovob of 1 Tim. 
had its origin in Jewish usage. Some critics have 
been attracted by the similarity of title for the 

h. e. 14 



210 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

Hazan kakknesetk, or servant of the synagogue. 
He is doubtless the official called virrjpeTrjs in Luke 
iv. 20. Now vTrrjpeTrjs and Stdfcovos are often used 
interchangeably (though vTrrjperrj^ is the vaguer word 
of the two), and Epiph. 135 A speaks of 'A&vitcov 
twv irap auToi? Siatcovcov epfjLrjvevofJievoov rj virrjperoop. 
But the duties of the Hazan were different, and 
apparently confined to the walls of the synagogue. 

Still less could the office have had a heathen origin, 
despite the two inscriptions cited by Hatch p. 50, 
C.I.G. 1793 b. add, at Anactorium in Acarnania, where 
hicucovos is one of ten offices evidently connected with 
sacrificial feasts, standing between /ndyeipos and apyoi- 
vo%ov<$ ; and 3037 at Metropolis in Lydia, where twice 
over we have a /epei/9, a lepeia, a (female) Sidfcovos, and 
two (male) 8id/covoL. 

In the Apostolic conception of an Ecclesia such 
a function as that of these Ephesian Sid/copot, had a 
sufficiently lofty side ; the Sidfcovot, were the main 
instruments for giving practical effect to the mutual 
sympathy of the members of the body. 

Had then the word already become technical 
when 1 Tim. was written ? It is not easy to answer 
quite precisely. We cannot safely argue back from 
later usage without knowing whether later usage was 
affected by this very passage. But the office can 
hardly have been without a title from the first, and 
no other title for the office occurs in the Epistle, 
while St Paul evidently assumed no other designation 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 211 

or description to be necessary. It seems pretty cer- 
tain, therefore, that hidicovos was already a recognised 
title among the Christians of Ephesus. On the other 
hand it seems equally probable that in this context 
St Paul uses it with express reference to its ordinary 
associations in antithesis to eTTLo-Koirrjs and iiriaicoTrov 
above. That is, he treats the two offices as character- 
istically offices, the one of government, the other of 
the reverse of government ' service \ How natural this 
contrast would seem to Greeks we can readily see by 
a passage of Aeschines (c. Ctesiph. 13) respecting the 
classification of public offices at Athens according to 
the authorities which elected or nominated to them. 
Thus tested, the lower class of offices, he says, is not 
an apyi] but kiriybekeia tl$ /cal Scafcovia, and similarly, 
further on, he uses the phrase ov Sta/covelv a\V 
apyew- Assuredly the eTnaKoirr] of the Elders would 
count as an dp^rj or government, and thus the 
contrast would need no explicit comment. 

The salutation in Phil. i. I. 

Let us now return for a moment to the salutation 
of Philippians, which it would have been unsatisfac- 
tory to consider in detachment from the illustra- 
tion afforded by the Pastoral Epistles. "Paul and 
Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus to all the saints in 
Christ Jesus that are at Philippi, avv eirta-Koiroi^ tcai 
Sca/covois" If the verse stood alone, no one would 
hesitate before assuming that these are two titles of 

14 — 2 



212 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

two offices, €7TLcr/€07roL and htaicovoL. Of course it 
would not follow that iirta kottols bears here its later 
monarchical sense : the plural (being addressed to a 
single Ecclesia) and what is known of the arrangements 
of the Apostolic age generally would shew the office to 
be one shared by at least a plurality of persons in the 
same Ecclesia. But then we have to face the fact that 
this Epistle stands chronologically between St Paul's 
words at Miletus and his letter to Titus and I Tim., 
which agree in using eV/o7co7ro?, not as a title synony- 
mous with the title Trpeafivrepos, Elder, but as a word 
describing the function of the persons entitled Elders. 
In other words, eV£cr/co7nw,if a title in Philipp. i. I, would 
imply a more advanced state of things than that of 
the Pastoral Epistles. The clue to what seems the 
right interpretation is given by those thirteen verses 
of i Tim. iii. which we were considering lately. St Paul 
does not mean simply two different offices, but two 
contrasted offices, or (to speak more correctly) two 
contrasted functions, " with them that have oversight, 
and them that do service [minister]." On the com- 
mon view he would be simply sending salutations to 
the two sets of men independently of the salutation to 
the ' saints ' at Philippi generally : and in that case we 
might find it hard to explain why such a salutation is 
withheld in writing to other Ecclesiae. In reality he 
is probably thinking less of the men coming under 
either head than of the Ecclesia as a whole : these two 
functions are to him the main outward manifestations 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 213 



that the community of saints was indeed an organised 
body, needing and possessing government on the one 
side and service on the other. It would matter little 
how many offices there were, with or without titles, 
two, or three, or twenty. That was a matter of 
external arrangement, which might vary endlessly 
according to circumstances. The essential thing was 
to recognise the need of the two fundamental types 
of function. 

It might perhaps be suggested that sufficient ac- 
count has not here been taken of the usage of early 
Christian writers outside the New Testament. But 
the fact is, their evidence is of little help. To the 
best of my belief the only place where eirlaKoiroi 
alone is used of Elders is in the Didache 15, " Choose 
therefore for yourselves to be kiriaicoirov^ kclI Siaxovovs 
men worthy of the Lord, meek, not lovers of money, 
etc." ; where the precise nature of the usage is as 
ambiguous as in Philippians, from which Epistle indeed 
the combination is probably borrowed, whether rightly 
understood or not. On the other hand both Clement 
and Hermas use both eiriafcoTro*; and 7rpe<x/3uTepo9, 
and apparently in just the same way as St Paul at 
Miletus and in the Pastoral Epistles : in Clem. 44 rod 
dvofiaros tt}<? 67Ticr/co7r^9, as both Lightfoot and Harnack 
rightly assume, does not mean the title eirivicoiros but 
the dignity attaching to the function of kTriGKoir^y ac- 
cording to the frequent biblical sense of i name \ 



214 OFFICERS OF THE EC CLE SI A 

* Laying on of hands ' in I Tim. v. 22. 

We have not quite done with the Pastoral Epistles, 
though nearly so. One verse should be mentioned 
here, because it has been so often understood in a sense 
bearing on this subject of offices in the Ecclesia, v. 22, 
"Lay hands hastily on no one, neither be in fellow- 
ship with sins of others : keep thyself pure." This 
verse stands next to the adjuration against the 
shewing of favour or prejudice by Timothy in his 
sanctioning special honour for some Elders, and him- 
self receiving accusations and uttering rebukes in the 
case of others. It is followed by the verse bidding 
Timothy be no longer a water-drinker. Thus it 
stands between five verses relating to Elders and a 
single verse relating to Timothy's own imprudent 
adoption of a questionable form of ayveia or cere- 
monial purity. In this position the laying on of 
hands is by most commentators, as also by such 
Greek fathers as notice the verse, interpreted of or- 
dination, i.e. of the Elders previously mentioned : the 
other equally familiar laying on of hands, that con- 
nected with baptism and eventually known as Confir- 
mation, being evidently out of place here. This view 
is certainly possible, but it suits rather imperfectly the 
strong phrase " be not partaker in sins of others " ; 
and it makes an additional precept about Elders come 
in after that solemn adjuration, the natural place of 
such a precept being before the adjuration. There is 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 215 

much greater probability in the view taken by some 
Latin fathers, by our own Hammond (who defends it 
at great length), and by a few recent critics, including 
Dr Ellicott, that the laying on of hands, the act 
symbolical of blessing, was here the act of blessing by 
which penitents were received back into the com- 
munion of the faithful (cf. 2 Cor. ii. 6 f.). The 
practice was certainly widely spread among Christians 
not more than four or five generations later, and as 
Hammond points out, the principle of it is involved 
in the laying on of hands on the sick accepted from 
others and practised by our Lord Himself repeatedly, 
as also by St Paul (Acts xxviii. 8), even as by Ananias 
in restoring St Paul's own sight (Acts ix. 12, 17), and 
probably implied in James v. 14 (jrpocrev^daOwaav eir 
clvtov). 

1 Laying on of hands * in ordination. 

Neither here then nor elsewhere in the New 
Testament have we any information about the manner 
in which Elders were consecrated or ordained (the 
exact word matters little) to their office ; the x €L P°- 
TovtfcravTes of Acts xiv. 23 having of course no 
reference to a solemn act of appointment but to the 
preceding choice, just as in 2 Cor. viii. 19 %eLpoTovr)9ei<s 
means that Titus had been chosen by the Ecclesiae to 
travel with St Paul. The only passages of the New 
Testament in which laying on of hands is connected 
with an act answering to ordination are four, viz. Acts 



216 OFFICERS OF THE ECCLESIA 

vi. 6, the laying on of the hands of the Twelve on the 
Seven at Jerusalem at their first appointment ; Acts 
xiii. 3, the laying on of the hands of the representa- 
tives of the Ecclesia of Antioch on Barnabas and Saul 
in consequence of a prophetic monition sending them 
forth ; and the two passages about Timothy, likewise, 
as we have lately seen, due in all probability to another 
prophetic monition sending him forth on a unique 
mission intimately connected with that former mission. 
Jewish usage 1 in the case of Rabbis and their disciples 
renders it highly probable that (as a matter of fact) 
laying on of hands was largely practised in the Ec- 
clesiae of the Apostolic age as a rite introductory to 
ecclesiastical office. But as the New Testament tells 
us no more than what has been already mentioned, it 
can hardly be likely that any essential principle was 
held to be involved in it. It was enough that an 
Ecclesia should in modern phrase be organised, or in 
the really clearer Apostolic phrase be treated as a 
body made up of members with a diversity of func- 
tions ; and that all things should be done decently 
and in order. 



1 The transference of the Semlchah to the Sanhedrin and Patriarch 
is of later date : see Hamburger, Art. Ordinirung ii. 883 ff. 

[The Semlchah was the ceremony accompanying the appointment of 
a Rabbi and admission to the Sanhedrin. The root Samach is used of 
Moses laying his hands on Joshua at his appointment, Nu. xxvii. 18, 23 
and of putting the hand on the sacrifices, Lev. i. 4, iv. 4, etc. 

See Buxtorf, Lex. 1498. Selden, de Synedriis ii. 7.] 



IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES. 217 

We must not stop now to examine the sixteen 
verses on widows which open chap, v., merely noticing 
the way in which the Christian community of Ephesus 
was at this time caring for its most helpless and at 
the same time deserving members. A widow of at 
least sixty fulfilling certain moral conditions, among 
others that of having laid herself out to help other 
members of the community in their needs, was to be 
placed on the roll (v. 9 KaraXeyeadcd), evidently (see v. 
16) the Ecclesia at large was to be charged with their 
support 



LECTURE XIII. 

Brief Notes on various Epistles and 
Recapitula tion. 

Directions for public prayer in I Timothy. 

Returning for a moment to chap, ii., from the 
continuation of which in chap. iii. we have already 
learned so much, we come in its opening verses to the 
first part of the charge which St Paul was specially 
desirous to give now to Timothy for his guidance. 
For the worship of the Ecclesia this charge of inter- 
cession (ii. i — 4) takes precedence of all others. These 
various forms of prayer and thanksgivings are to be 
offered up by its members, and there is to be no 
exclusiveness in the subject of them. Christians are 
to pray not only for Christians and Christian com- 
munities, but for all mankind ; then he adds (you will 
remember that Nero was reigning) " for kings and all 
that are in high places." The order of society, and 
those who had (as our Lord told Pilate) received 



BRIEF NOTES AND RECAPITULATION. 219 

authority over it from above, were not to be foreign 
to Christians' goodwill and prayers, much less to be 
hated and prayed against. This last monition repeats 
in another shape what had been written by St Paul 
to the Romans, the echo of which in few but forcible 
words is to be heard from St Peter. It inspires one 
of the most striking parts of the magnificent prayer 
contained in the newly recovered portion of Clement's 
Epistle, and the same strain sounds repeatedly in the 
Second Century. But that former monition about 
prayer for all mankind, with the reason given for it in 
vv. 3, 4, is even more characteristic of St Paul's con- 
ception of the function of the Ecclesia in the world. 
The prominence of the words meaning ' saving ' in the 
Pastoral Epistles has often been noticed, and assuredly 
it is not accidental. Doubtless the various thoughts re- 
lating to Christ's relation to the universe, to humanity, 
and to the Ecclesia which found expression in Ephe- 
sians, indeed to a certain extent some years before in 
Rom. xi., were in themselves likely to deepen and 
expand St Paul's sense of saving as the comprehensive 
term to describe the Divine action upon and for man- 
kind. But at the time when he wrote the Pastorals he 
was further, if I mistake not, under a peculiarly strong 
sense of the evil likely to penetrate into the Christians 
of Crete and Ephesus from Rabbinism, not from the 
old mistaken zeal for Law and Circumcision, but from 
the new casuistry and fabling of the Jewish doctors. 
This is I believe the key to various peculiarities of 



220 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 

these Epistles, and not least to their frequent insis- 
tence on what was healthful (" sound ") as opposed to 
a morbid occupation with unprofitable trifles (i Tim. 
vi. 4, voordov 7T€pl fyrrjcreLs, etc.). Now one marked 
characteristic of the rabbinical spirit was its bitter 
exclusiveness, the exclusiveness of men who, as St 
Paul told the Thessalonians (i Thess. ii. 15 f.) were 
"contrary to all men, forbidding us to speak to the 
Gentiles that they may be saved." And so St Paul 
teaches the new Ecclesiae of God that He whom they 
worship is emphatically the Saviour God, who willeth 
that all men should be saved and come to the know- 
ledge of truth, and thus leads them to feel that the 
work of an Ecclesia of His as towards the world is 
likewise to save ; even as the Gospel which he was 
himself commissioned to preach to the Gentiles had 
for its subject Him who had given Himself a ransom 
not for His chosen people only but for all. This 
topic may seem not a little remote from the obviously 
ecclesiastical questions about Elders and Deacons ; but 
it bears very closely on St Paul's conception of a 
Christian Ecclesia. 

Various evidence of James, 1 Peter, Hebrews, 
Apocalypse, 

St James's Epistle will not detain us long. To him 
the ideal twelve tribes of the ancient Israel, whether 
in Palestine or in the Dispersion, were still a reality 
though doubtless he reckoned none but Christians as 



AND RECAPITULATION. 221 

rightly representing them. To the yet wider Christian 
Ecclesia he makes no reference. But he shews a true 
sense of what was meant by membership of an Ecclesia 
in the narrower sense. It is latent in his rebuke of 
the old misuse of the poor by the rich in the congre- 
gation for worship, still called ' synagogue ' (chap. ii.). 
It comes out more clearly in the last chapter, where 
the fellowship of the whole body in one of its members 
who is sick and thus cut off from the rest, is expressed 
and made active by the intercessions of those who 
are expressly called not simply ' the Elders ' but * the 
Elders of the Ecclesia/ in this as in other ways the 
vehicles of the sympathy of the whole brotherhood ; 
and where again the reality of this fraternal relation is 
at once tested and strengthened not only by mutual 
intercession but by mutual confession of sins. 

St Peter can hardly be said to add any distinctly 
new element to what we have already found in St 
Paul, unless it be the bold but luminous comparison 
by which in ii. 4, 5, instead of filling out the image of 
a body with thoughts connected with building, he 
boldly substitutes the building as the primary image, 
shaping it to his purpose by adding the thought of 
living stones " coming to " a living corner-stone. But 
he sets forth with special vividness the prerogatives of 
God's new or Christian Ecclesia as having now suc- 
ceeded to the ancient titles of Israel (ii. 4 — 10; see 
especially his use of the ancient designation of Israel 



222 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 

as a kingly priesthood) ; and again the conception of 
various yapld^ara (iv. 9 f.) to be ministered to all by 
the several members of the community as stewards of 
a manifold grace of God. The first four verses of 
chap. v. must be addressed to 'Elders' in the usual 
official sense, for they speak of " the flock of God " 
and of " the chief shepherd," and lay down instructions 
for the right tending of the flock. But St Peter seems 
to join with this the original or etymological sense 
when he calls himself a fellow-elder, apparently as one 
who could bear personal testimony to the Christ's 
sufferings, and when (v. 5) he bids the younger be 
subject to the elder. (For a similar combination see 
Polycarp 5, 6, where vecorepo? comes between deacons 
and elders.) 

Hebrews I shall venture to pass over. The rela- 
tions of its teaching to our primary subject are 
complicated by the peculiarity of the position of the 
Christians of Palestine at the time. No one can miss 
the indications of a spirit of brotherhood in chap, xiii., 
or its allusions to rulers of the Ecclesia vaguely called 
oi rjyovfj,€voi. 

The Apocalypse I must still more reluctantly pass 
over, or nearly so, from sheer want of time. In i. 6 ; 
v. 10, we have the Hebrew form of that phrase of 
Exodus which St Peter repeated from the LXX. 
The seven Ecclesiae of Asia met us once before ; and 



AND RECAPITULATION. 223 

we must leave them now without remark. Perhaps the 
most interesting point in relation to our subject is the 
vividness and elaboration with which the representa- 
tion of the new Ecclesia as the true Israel is worked 
out, especially in chapters vii., xxi. It is especially 
noteworthy that in chap, vii., if I mistake not, the 
twelve thousand from every tribe, described as spoken 
of by the angel, not as seen by John, are identical 
with the great multitude which his eyes beheld, the 
actual multitude out of every nation and tribe etc., 
the members of a now universal Ecclesia. 

On St James's last days I should like to have said 
a little more : but the most essential points respecting 
him had to be examined in connexion with the Je- 
rusalem conference ; and what remains, though it 
belongs to the Apostolic age, belongs also to literature 
outside the New Testament, and so may fitly find a 
place elsewhere if I should be permitted to lecture on 
the remaining part of our subject another time. 

As regards St John's later writings it must suffice 
to remind you once more of chapters xiii. — xvii. of 
the Gospel as on the whole the weightiest and most 
pregnant body of teaching on the Ecclesia to be found 
anywhere in the Bible. 



224 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 

Problems of the Second Century and later. 

Here I fear we must break off the examination of 
the several Epistles, this being the last lecture of 
the course. At the outset I had hoped at least to 
be able to deal with the chief ecclesiastical prob- 
lems of the Second Century, with the material of 
this kind supplied by Clement of Rome and Herrnas, 
the Didache of the Apostles, Ignatius and Polycarp, 
Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (to name only the chief 
names). I wished especially to shew how much of 
the controversial differences of later ages on this 
subject had their root in the actual necessary ex- 
perience of those early days, and in the natural falling 
apart of ideas which in the Apostolic writings are com- 
bined and complementary to each other. Without 
some clear thoughts on these matters it is impossible 
to understand the real significance of the enormous 
changes which had begun indeed before the end of the 
Second Century, but which for the most part belong 
to a later time (for the West the names of Cyprian, 
Ambrose, and Augustine will be sufficiently repre- 
sentative). I can do no more now than ask you 
to think of the different lights in which Church mem- 
bership might naturally present itself, first when 
Christians were only scattered sojourners in the 
midst of a suspicious and often hostile population ; 
next, when they had become, though a minority, 
yet an important and a tolerated minority ; then 



AND RECAPITULATION. 225 

when they were set on a place of vantage by the 
civil power, and so were increased by hosts of mere 
timeservers ; and lastly when they had come to con- 
stitute practically the whole population, and a 
Christian world had come into existence. The funda- 
mental perplexing fact throughout was the paradox 
of a holy Ecclesia consisting in part of men very 
unholy. In at least three great sectarian movements 
of the early ages this is an important element, in 
Montanism, Novatianism, Donatism : but the funda- 
mental thoughts which in this respect governed these 
movements are to be found in the writings of justly 
venerated Fathers. 

This is all that I can attempt to say now. If I 
am permitted to lecture in the Michaelmas Term of 
next year, and no strong reason for preferring another 
subject intervenes, I shall hope to carry forward the 
beginning made this term. 

Recapitulation. 

In the few remaining minutes I should be glad to 
gather up with extreme brevity some of the leading 
results at which we seem to have arrived thus far. 
The greater part of our time has been taken up with 
what belongs to the early history rather than the 
early conceptions of the Christian Ecclesia, but, as 
was to be expected, what the Gospels offered us 
belongs almost wholly to the region of conceptions. 
h. e. 15 



226 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 

The one single saying in which our Lord names the 
new or Christian Ecclesia marks at once its continuity 
with the Ecclesia of Israel and its newness as His 
own, the Messiah's, Ecclesia. It marks also its unity. 
Lastly it marks its being built on Peter and the other 
eleven, now ascertained to be fit for this function of 
foundations by the faith in which they had recognised 
His Messiahship. We saw how the last evening 
before the Passion, the evening on which began the 
transition, so to speak, from the Ministry of Christ to 
the Ministry of His Ecclesia, was one long unfolding 
of the inner nature of the Ecclesia, by the feast of 
Holy Communion (as in Matthew, Mark, Luke), and 
(as in St John) by the symbolic feetwashing, the 
conversations and discourses which followed (especi- 
ally the New Commandment, the Vine and the 
Branches, and the promise of the other Paraclete), and 
lastly the prayer that the disciples themselves, the re- 
presentatives of the future Ecclesia of disciples, and all 
who should believe on Him through their word, may 
be One ; with the assurance that as the Father sent 
Him into the world, so He Himself sent them into 
the world ; so that their work was not for themselves, 
but for the saving of mankind. So too for the new 
members of the Ecclesia of whom we read in the 
early chapters of Acts the condition of entrance is the 
same, personal faith leading to personal discipleship, 
discipleship to a now ascended Lord. And again the 
life lived is essentially a life of community, in which 






AND RECAPITULATION. 227 

each felt himself to hold a trust for the good of all. 
At first the oneness of the Ecclesia is a visible fact 
due simply to its limitation to the one city of Jerusa- 
lem. Presently it enlarges and includes all the Holy 
Land, becoming ideally conterminous with the Jewish 
Ecclesia. But at length discipleship on a large scale 
springs up at Antioch, and so we have a new Ecclesia. 
By various words and acts the community of purpose 
and interests between the two Ecclesiae is maintained : 
but they remain two. Presently the Ecclesia of An- 
tioch, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit speaking 
through one or more prophets, sets apart Barnabas 
and Paul and sends them forth beyond Taurus to 
preach the Gospel. They go first to the Jews of the 
Dispersion but have at last to turn to the Gentiles. 
On their way home they recognise or constitute 
Ecclesiae of their converts in the several cities and 
choose for them Elders. Thus there is a multiplication 
of single Ecclesiae. We need not trace the process 
further. We find St Paul cultivating the friendliest 
relations between these different bodies, and some- 
times in language grouping together those of a single 
region : but we do not find him establishing or no- 
ticing any formal connexion between those of one 
region or between all generally. He does however 
work sedulously to counteract the imminent danger 
of a specially deadly schism, viz. between the Ecclesiae 
of Judea (as he calls them) and the Ecclesiae of the 
Gentile world When the danger of that schism has 

*5— 2 



228 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 

been averted, he is able to feel that the Ecclesia is 
indeed One. Finally in Ephesians, and partly Colos- 
sians, he does from his Roman habitation not only set 
forth emphatically the unity of the whole body, but 
expatiate in mystic language on its spiritual relation 
to its unseen Head, catching up and carrying on the 
language of prophets about the ancient Israel as the 
bride of Jehovah, and suggest that this one Ecclesia, 
now sealed as one by the creating of the two peoples 
into one, is God's primary agent in His ever expanding 
counsels towards mankind. 

As regards the mutual relations between its mem- 
bers, these are set forth in many passages which are apt 
to be read only as belonging to ethics or to individual 
religion. We are apt to forget (i) that according to 
the New Testament (and especially Ephesians) the 
Christian life is the true human life, and that Christians 
become true men in proportion as they live up to it, 
(2) that the right relations between the members of 
the Christian Society or Ecclesia are simply the 
normal relations which should subsist between mem- 
bers of the human race, and therefore (3) that all the 
relations of life, being baptised into Christ, become 
parts and particular modes of Christian membership, 
and can be rightly acted out only under its condi- 
tions, while Christian fellowship further creates a bond, 
independent of the ordinary family and other such 
relations, which has a sacredness of its own. Hence 
the true life of the Ecclesia consists for the most 



AND RECAPITULATION 229 

part in the hourly and daily converse and behaviour 
of all its members, in just that element of human 
existence, in short, which rarely crystallizes into what 
we call events, notable incidents such as find a place 
in histories. The Ecclesia as clothed with those high 
attributes set forth by St Paul is realised, as it were, 
in those monotonous homelinesses of daily living 
rather than in administration or business, though it 
were business of the highest kind, the formulation 
of creeds, or laws, or policies. 

While therefore matters belonging to what is called 
the organisation of the Ecclesia are undoubtedly an 
important part of the subject, it would be a serious 
mistake to treat them as the whole. There is indeed 
a certain ambiguity in the word ' organisation ' as 
thus used. Nothing perhaps has been more promi- 
nent in our examination of the Ecclesiae of the 
Apostolic age than the fact that the Ecclesia itself, 
i.e. apparently the sum of all its male adult mem- 
bers, is the primary body, and, it would seem, even 
the primary authority. It may be that this state of 
things was in some ways a mark of immaturity ; and 
that a better and riper organisation must of ne- 
cessity involve the creation of more special organs of 
the community. Still the very origin and funda- 
mental nature of the Ecclesia as a community of 
disciples renders it impossible that the principle 
should rightly become obsolete. In a word we cannot 
properly speak of an organisation of a community 



2 3 o BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 

from which the greater part of its members are ex- 
cluded. The true way, the Apostolic way, of re- 
garding offices or officers in the Ecclesia is to regard 
them as organs of its corporate life for special pur- 
poses : so that the offices of an Ecclesia at any 
period are only a part of its organisation, unless 
indeed it unhappily has no other element of organi- 
sation. 

In the Apostolic age we have seen that the offices 
instituted in the Ecclesia were the creation of suc- 
cessive experiences and changes of circumstance, in- 
volving at the same time a partial adoption first of 
Jewish precedents by the Ecclesia of Judea, and then 
apparently of Judean Christian precedents by the 
Ecclesiae of the Dispersion and the Gentiles. There is 
no trace in the New Testament that any ordinances 
on this subject were prescribed by the Lord, or that 
any such ordinances were set up as permanently 
binding by the Twelve or by St Paul or by the Ec- 
clesia at large. Their faith in the Holy Spirit and 
His perpetual guidance was too much of a reality to 
make that possible. 

The Apostles, we have seen, were essentially per- 
sonal witnesses of the Lord and His Resurrection, 
bearing witness by acts of beneficent power and by 
word, the preaching of the kingdom. Round this, 
their definite function, grew up in process of time 
an indefinite authority, the natural and right and 
necessary consequence of their unique position. It 






AND RECAPITULATION. 231 

is difficult to think how the early Ecclesia of Judea 
could possibly have staggered on without that apo- 
stolic authority ; but it came to the Apostles by the 
ordinary action of Divine Providence, not (so far as 
we can see) by any formal Divine Command. The 
government which they thus exercised was a genuine 
government, all the more genuine and effectual be- 
cause it was in modern phrase constitutional : it did 
not supersede the responsibility and action of the 
Elders or the Ecclesia at large, but called them out. 
About the exceptional position of James there will 
be a word to say just now. 

The Apostles were not in any proper sense officers 
of the Ecclesia. The first officers who are definitely 
mentioned are the Seven. I need not repeat the 
precise purpose of their appointment. It was for a 
strictly subordinate and external function, though 
men of wisdom and a holy spirit were needed for it. 
Of officers in some respects analogous under the 
name Sidfcovot, ministrants, deacons, we have been 
hearing at Ephesus in 1 Tim., and at least in some 
sense at Philippi. 

But though the Seven of Jerusalem are the first 
officers mentioned, we found reason to suspect that 
of still earlier date (certainly not much later) were 
the Elders. This apparently universal institution, for 
administration and in part for teaching, was adopted 
by Christians apparently universally. We have dis- 
tinct evidence for it in the New Testament at Jeru- 



232 BRIEF NOTES ON VARIOUS EPISTLES 

salem, in Lycaonia, at Ephesus, in Crete, and pro- 
bably at Thessalonica : it is mentioned in the Epistles 
of St James addressed to Jewish Christians of the 
whole Dispersion, and of St Peter addressed to the 
Christians of Asia Minor. Of officers higher than 
Elders we find nothing that points to an institution 
or system, nothing like the episcopal system of later 
times. In the New Testament the word eirio-Koiro^ as 
applied to men, mainly, if not always, is not a title, 
but a description of the Elders function. On the other 
hand the monarchical principle, which is the essence 
of episcopacy receives in the Apostolic age a practical 
though a limited recognition, not so much in the 
absolutely exceptional position of St Peter in the 
early days at Jerusalem, or the equally exceptional 
position of St Paul throughout the Ecclesiae of his 
own foundation, as in the position ultimately held 
by St James at Jerusalem, and also to a limited 
extent in the temporary functions entrusted by 
St Paul to Timothy and Titus when he left them 
behind for a little while to complete arrangements 
begun by himself at Ephesus and in Crete respect- 
ively. 

In this as in so many other things is seen the 
futility of endeavouring to make the Apostolic history 
into a set of authoritative precedents, to be rigorously 
copied without regard to time and place, thus turning 
the Gospel into a second Levitical Code. The Apo- 
stolic age is full of embodiments of purposes and 



AND RECAPITULATION. 233 

principles of the most instructive kind : but the re- 
sponsibility of choosing the means was left for ever 
to the Ecclesia itself, and to each Ecclesia, guided 
by ancient precedent on the one hand and adaptation 
to present and future needs on the other. The lesson- 
book of the Ecclesia, and of every Ecclesia, is not 
a law but a history. 



THE SENSE AND SERVICE OF MEMBERSHIP 
THE MEASURE OF TRUE SOUNDNESS IN 
THE BODY. 

A SERMON PREACHED IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY AT 
BISHOP WESTCOTT'S CONSECRATION, ON THE 
FESTIVAL OF ST PHILIP AND ST JAMES, 1890. 

Ephesians iv. 12, 13. 

For the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering^ 
unto the buildi?ig up of the body of Christ ; till we 
all attain unto the unity of the faith and of the know- 
ledge of the Son of God. 

THESE words are spoken to us out of the past, 
a past which is in one sense becoming ever more 
remote. Already the nineteenth of the centuries 
which are reckoned from the coming of Christ our 
Lord is drawing perceptibly near to its end. The 
long interval which actually separates us from the 
Apostolic age grows unremittingly longer ; while the 
sense of distance gains steadily in force with the 
knowledge that the human race, within and without 



SERMON IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 235 

Christendom, is setting forth on new and untrodden 
ways. 

Yet this remoteness of time and of circumstance 
is swallowed up in a greater nearness. It is hardly 
too bold to say that through all these centuries 
no generation of Christians has had the Apostolic 
writings so nigh to them as our own. That in- 
stinctive turning to the primary deposit of Christian 
truth, which has often been noticed as an accom- 
paniment of times of religious convulsion and per- 
plexity, could hardly fail to be called forth to an 
unwonted degree by these later days. Other in- 
fluences have been at work in the same direction 
with perhaps equal power. The study of the New 
Testament by professed students has been pursued 
for many years with increased carefulness, circum- 
spection, and regard for evidence. What is more 
important still, the Apostolic epistles have been 
gaining immeasurably in freshness and felt reality 
by the growing anxiety to read them in the light 
of the personal and historical circumstances out of 
which they sprang. With good reason Christian 
men have looked to them for present help, true 
though it be that they belong to a single age, and to 
peculiar conjunctures of outward and inward events. 
For that was indeed a chosen period in the world's 
history ; and they whose words have been thus 
handed down for our instruction were chosen agents 
in the unique spiritual revolution which was then 



236 A SERMON PREACHED 

accomplished. Not a Divine enlightenment alone, 
but also a Divine ordering of the meeting and parting 
streams of human affairs, enabled epistles called 
forth by immediate needs to become a perpetual 
fountain of light ; whether through teachings that 
in the letter were temporary, and therefore would 
call for varying embodiments of their spirit according 
to varying conditions, or through the setting forth 
of verities that by the very nature of their subject- 
matter are incapable of change. 

Among the books of the New Testament the 
Epistle to the Ephesians in particular has been of 
late years drawing to itself the earnest attention of 
many. Enigmatic as might be its language under 
this or that head, they have felt that it gave promise 
of at least a partial answer to some anxious per- 
plexities of this present time, and of both sanction 
and guidance to some of its highest aspirations. It 
holds in truth a peculiar position among St Paul's 
epistles ; and not in his epistles alone, but in the 
drama of his distinctive mission. No other writing 
of his is so little affected in shape or scope by 
temporary conditions of place or person. It is the 
harmonious outpouring of thoughts that had long 
been cherished, but had not as yet found right and 
profitable opportunity for full utterance ; thoughts 
that doubtless had grown and ripened while they lay 
unspoken, and now had been kindled afresh by the 
conjuncture which had at length been reached in the 



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 237 

Divine ordering of events ; for now, after weary years 
of struggle and anxiety, what St Paul recognised as 
sure pledges for the essential unity and essential 
universality of the Church of Christ had been visibly 
bestowed from on high. 

Both St Paul's character and his work are griev- 
ously misjudged when they are interpreted exclusively 
by his zealous championship of Gentile liberties. 
This fidelity to the special trust which he had re- 
ceived was balanced by an anxiety to avert a breach 
between the Christians of Palestine, for whom the 
Law remained binding while the Temple was still 
standing, and the Gentile Christians of other lands ; 
to promote kindly recognition on the one side and 
brotherly help on the other. Such a breach, he 
doubtless felt, would have cut Gentile Christianity 
away from its Divinely prepared base, and sent it 
adrift as a new religion founded by himself. 

Already in the Epistle to the Romans we find 
the two great sections of mankind ranged carefully 
on equal terms for condemnation and for salvation. 
St Paul's bitter heartache at his brethren's unbelief 
is quenched in his conviction that the gifts and the 
calling of God are without repentance, and in his 
faith in the riches of wisdom whereby God would 
make a way for His mercy at last. And then, look- 
ing in the face the more than possibility of death 
in the intended visit to Jerusalem which his plans 
for the preservation of unity required, he uses words 



238 A SERMON PREACHED 

of singular impressiveness to convey to the Romans 
the joy with which he would afterwards come among 
them, should he escape with his life. We all know 
by what an unexpected way God brought him to 
Rome at last, and that with the purpose of his visit 
to Jerusalem long accomplished. 

To this new vantage-ground St Paul had attained 
when he wrote the Epistle to the Ephesians. He 
wrote in the thankful sense that, first, the dreaded 
breach had been averted, and then that, through his 
having now been permitted to join in fellowship and 
work with the Christians of Rome, the Gospel to the 
Gentiles had in the person of its chosen representa- 
tive obtained a footing in the imperial city, the centre 
of civilised mankind, and thus received, as it were, 
a pledge of a world-wide destiny. 

The foundation of the teaching now poured forth 
by the Apostle to the beloved Ephesian Church of 
his own founding, and doubtless to other Churches 
of the same region, is laid in high mysteries of theo- 
logy, the eternal purpose according to which God 
unrolled the course of the ages, with the coming of 
Jesus as Christ as their central event, and the sum- 
ming up of all heavenly and earthly things in Him. 
That universal primacy of being ascribed to Him 
suggests His Headship in relation to the Church 
as His Body. Presently unity is ascribed to the 
Church from another side ; not indeed a unity such 
as was sought after in later centuries, the unity of 



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 239 

many separate Churches, but the unity created by the 
abolition of the middle wall of partition between Jew 
and Gentile in the new Christian society, a unity 
answering to the sum of mankind. Thus the Church 
was the visible symbol of the newly revealed largeness 
of God's purposes towards the human race, as well as 
the primary instrument for carrying them into effect. 
Its very existence, it seems to be hinted in the 
doxology which closes this part of the Epistle, was 
a warrant for believing that God's whole counsel was 
not even yet made known. 

From this doxology St Paul passes at once to 
the precepts of right living which he founds on the 
loftiness of the Christian calling. The great passage 
which gathers up seven unities of Christian faith and 
religion is but accessory to the exhortation to "give 
diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond 
of peace " ; in other words, to maintain earnestly the 
moral and spiritual basis of true Church membership. 
Then follows the correlative truth involved in Church 
membership, the place of the individual in the com- 
munity. He is not to be lost in the community, as in 
so many societies of the ancient world. His in- 
dividuality is not to be smoothed away and treated 
as some capricious blemish of nature. Rather it is to 
determine the character of his service. " But to each 
one of us" — the words are studiously emphatic — 
" to each one of us was given the grace according to 
the measure of the gift of Christ." Already St Paul 



240 A SERMON PREACHED 

has spoken of his own unique function of Apostle 
to the Gentiles as itself a "grace", a special gift of 
God bestowed upon him for the sake of the Gentiles ; 
and now he claims the same Divine origin for the 
particular function of service which each member of 
the body was to render to the body or its other 
members. Then, with free adaptation of words from 
the Psalter, he points to the ascended Lord as the 
Giver of gifts " to men ", and after a short digression 
applies them to certain typical classes of "gifts to 
men ", gifts intended for the good of men. Some of 
the gifts which Christ bestowed from on high were 
apostles, and some prophets, — the two types of ex- 
ceptional and temporary functions ; and some evan- 
gelists, and some pastors and teachers, — two corre- 
sponding types of ordinary and permanent functions. 
Here St Paul breaks off his list of examples. In 
other epistles he classes with these as functions of 
service to be rendered by individual members of a 
Church works of a less definite and official character, 
while he treats all alike as so many different functions 
of Church membership. And so what is expressly 
said here of the men exercising the highest functions, 
the functions of Christian teaching, was doubtless 
meant to be believed for all functions alike ; that the 
purpose for which God "gave" them was "the per- 
fecting of the saints unto a work of ministering, unto 
the building up of the body of Christ." 

The perfecting here spoken of is chiefly the train- 



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 241 

ing of stunted powers or organs into their proper 
activity. It is a process of culture and development, 
but not with the man himself for its ideal end. Its 
end is " a work of ministering ", some form of service 
to be rendered to others. For ministering is the one 
universal function of all " saints ", all individual mem- 
bers of the Church, the common element in all functions. 

But this various perfecting of the individual mem- 
bers for their several works of ministering had a 
single end beyond itself, even "the building of the 
body of Christ". The body of Christ was there 
already, but it was ever needing to be more and more 
"built", to be "compacted" in constant renewal in 
such wise as best to aid the flow of life from "the 
Head " through " every part ", and make provision for 
a ceaseless " growth ". 

But beyond the long process St Paul contemplates 
the end, " till we all attain unto the unity of the faith 
and of the knowledge of the Son of God." Till all 
have attained this unity, the unity which governs life 
and thought when, first, the faith of the Son of God, 
and then the learning of what is wrapped up in that 
faith, are lifting them out of distraction, the building 
of the body of Christ must go on, the perfecting of its 
several members for a work of ministering must be 
the aim of its wisest members. 

Such is the vision of the Church in which St Paul 
saw the appointed instrument for the fulfilment of his 
h. e. 16 



242 A SERMON PREACHED 

own best hopes for mankind, and which he desired to 
bequeath to his most cherished converts, that it might 
expand their faith and uplift the purpose of their 
lives. Can we now say that this vision has been 
clearly present to the minds of even the leaders of the 
Church through the intervening centuries ? Is it not 
rather in no small degree one of those truths which 
the new reading of the Bible by the light of new 
questionings is now causing to be newly discerned ? 
Can it be doubted that from an early time a dispro- 
portion grew up among men's various thoughts con- 
cerning the Church, so that St Paul's fundamental 
teaching concerning it receded into the background, 
becoming little more than a single conventional item 
of Christian ethics ? Such a change in the propor- 
tion observed in thought would be the natural, almost 
the inevitable, outcome of the corresponding change 
in the proportion observed in actual policy and prac- 
tice. It is easy to understand how the most pressing 
difficulties and dangers of the several Churches would 
come to be met with the most obviously compendious 
and effective resources, without adequate regard to 
the less obtrusive and more delicate yet also more 
vital elements of Church life. In a word, in canying 
out the necessary work of building itself up as a cor- 
poration, the Church would have needed rare and 
far-seeing wisdom indeed to save it from uncon- 
sciously giving insufficient heed to building itself up 
as a true body. 



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 243 

Whatever the truth may be respecting the forces 
that were at work in those ancient days which still 
exercise so subtle and manifold a power over the 
minds and ways of Christians, the present state of 
things is not less the result of other influences be- 
longing to far later centuries. Thus much at least 
is too sadly evident that, be the causes what they 
may, St Paul's teaching, which we have been con- 
sidering to-day, obtains but a secondary part in both 
the theory and the practice of our Church member- 
ship. And if so, can we desire a better ground for 
hope and consolation than the fact that this mighty 
resource still cries out to be tried, a resource which by 
its very nature proclaims its conformity with all that 
is most full of life within the Churches of Christendom, 
and with the purest among the aspirations of the 
uneasy multitude who as yet refuse the fellowship of 
the Gospel? 

On so vast a theme it would be unbecoming here 
to go beyond the barest suggestion of some general 
lines of thought. The most obvious need of all is the 
need of a conscious and joyful sense of membership 
as taught by St Paul, its dignity and its responsi- 
bilities, to be felt by men, women, and children, in 
every position and of every degree. Were this sense 
present in many, did many feel it imparting an 
unimagined life to every Holy Communion, and re- 
ceiving back an unimagined life in double measure, 
it would readily find modes of expressing itself in 



244 A SERMON PREACHED 

individual and social action ; and in due time more 
fixed and systematic forms of service would come 
into use, while the service of each lesser unity would 
go to make up the service of some greater unity in 
a manifold order. But it is in the widest sphere that 
this sense of membership, and this practice of it, 
would perhaps be most powerful for good. Did sin- 
cere Christians habitually recognise that they were 
united not merely by a common faith, but by mem- 
bership of one world-wide society built upon that 
faith, they could hardly be content with a fitful and 
trilling use of their collective responsibilities to other 
men. 

The experience of the last few years has shown 
how little salutary force could permanently be looked 
for in what is called a Christian world, a realm of 
habit and language sustained of late for the most part 
by vague and aimless convention, though permeated 
by Christian sentiment, and partly derived in the first 
instance from Christian traditions. For now, helped 
by the right and wise tolerance which Christians have 
been learning to practise, many who have lost their 
Christian faith, or grown up in estrangement from it, 
are relinquishing usages in which it is expressed or 
presupposed. A yet graver fact is the increasing ac- 
quiescence of Christian households in similar licence 
for themselves. And these are but tokens and ready 
examples of a chaotic condition which is spreading 
deeply under the surface of society. Remedies might 



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 



245 



no doubt be found without going beyond the accus- 
tomed lines. The press, the pulpit, the lecture-room, 
the school, the home, may all afford opportunities 
for wholesome and temperate guidance. But what 
we have to deal with is not a teaching, such as might 
be encountered by another teaching. It is a confused 
and disorganised state, affecting to a greater or less 
degree the whole inward being of men, the whole 
range of their conduct. Here the one entirely fitting 
corrective must surely be looked for in the harmonious 
and effectual working of a common life, inspired by a 
common faith ; even the common life and common 
faith of a community of men whose eyes have been 
opened to the reality and claims of the fellowship 
which embraces them. 

But again, though this corrective action of the 
Church as a community is what is most evidently 
invited by present necessities, we can never forget 
that it is but one side of its positive mission of 
bringing home to all mankind the light and the life 
of which it has been permitted itself to partake. 
Here the Apostolic word transcends our narrow hori- 
zon. We can but rest on the assurance that the 
universal mission of the Church springs from the 
same counsels as the universality of the redemption. 

Doubtless it may be feared by some that the 
office which has seemed to be marked out for the 
Church as a community by its Apostolic credentials 
is one that could not in practice be exercised without 



246 A SERMON PREACHED 

danger to the spiritual liberties of mankind. The 
yoke of petty religious communities, where such have 
existed, has sometimes been undeniably heavy in 
former days, and the yoke of more powerful religious 
communities might be regarded as likely to be here- 
after found yet heavier. Some again might doubt 
whether the sphere thus assigned to the Church as a 
community is not altogether wider than the region of 
human nature with which it is naturally and properly 
conversant. The answer to both these grave doubts 
is given implicitly by the breadth of aim and interest 
which a Church taught by the Apostles must needs 
claim for itself. The story of those small commu- 
nities of like-minded men, possessed by a dark theory 
of God's dealings with men, and of the kind of service 
which He requires of them, can tell us little of what 
may be expected from large and composite communi- 
ties of the future, enlightened by those riper con- 
ceptions of the province of religion which have been 
granted to these later times. Through the same 
better teaching we have come to learn that the right- 
ful province of the Church can be no narrower than 
the entire world of humanity, because God in Christ 
has claimed for His kingdom all things human 
except the evil that corrupts them, has included all 
things in the range of service well pleasing to Him- 
self, and has set His special seal of recognition on the 
service rendered to mankind. Nor is it otherwise 
with the ideal which a Church should hold up to its 



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 247 

members and to those without ; for the true Christian 
life has no special or limited type, being in very deed 
the true human life, seen in relation to the true Lord 
and Saviour of man's whole being. 

If it is true that the essential relations of life 
and service between the members of a Church one 
with another, or of each with the whole, have been 
obscured by the greater permanence and definiteness 
of what we are accustomed to call its organisation, 
yet a reviving sense of their true purport, leading the 
way to temperate effort to put it in practice, need 
involve no real breach with the past, no subversion of 
long venerated order. All true progress in the future 
must be conditioned by an intelligent use, not of the 
Apostolic writings alone, but of the varied stores of 
experience with which the Church of Christ has been 
enriched in each successive period of its long and 
changeful existence. On the other hand it could 
hardly be that a revival of varied corporate service, in 
which the members at large had their several parts, 
could fail to make itself felt in that province of service 
which belongs to organisation. Sooner or later none 
could be blind to the imperfection, the weakness, the 
barren divorce from sustaining sympathies, which 
must cling to an organisation in which the greater 
part of the members of the community have no per- 
sonal share. 

Thoughts akin to these must surely be present 



248 A SERMON PREACHED 

to the minds of many worshippers in this ancient 
house of God to-day. We are encompassed by the 
walls and treasured memorials which repeat to hear- 
ing ears what noble works the Lord God of our 
fathers has done in their days and in the old time 
before them. In a sanctuary thus doubly hallowed, 
can we believe that in the time to come He will leave 
this Church and " kingly commonwealth of England " 
unblessed with the full richness of those "gifts" of 
His " to men," all pointing to that one gift of the Son 
of His love out of which they flow? Uplifted and 
yet more humbled by those memories, dare we doubt 
that, save through our own faithlessness or sinful 
shortcomings, it will in one way or another be granted 
to this our ancestral community to heal the sorest 
breaches of our nation, to learn and to teach the way 
of inward and of outward peace ? 

But if these voices from our own English past 
give response to the message which has been speak- 
ing to us from the height of the Apostolic age, the 
occasion which gathers us together as one congrega- 
tion has another concordant voice of its own. We 
are met together from north and from south, from the 
old Northumbrian diocese and the central capital of 
the realm and many a scattered parish, to join in the 
act of worship by which a Chief Pastor of the Church 
is to be hallowed for his office to-day ; for the office 
which, more than any other, links past and present 
visibly together ; the office which, varying in preroga- 



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 249 

tives and in sphere of action from age to age, is now 
more perhaps than ever before the organ of active 
unity, the chief power by which all scattered powers 
that make for building up are drawn forth and 
directed. 

In commending him now to your prayers, I find 
my lips sealed by a sacred friendship of forty years 
from speaking as I might otherwise perhaps have 
desired to do. But in truth there can be little need 
that a single voice should attempt to utter what is 
already in the mind of thousands. Yet a few words 
must be ventured on for the sake of others. One 
who has laboured unceasingly to bring his country- 
men face to face with the New Testament Scriptures ; 
one for whom Christian truth is the realm of light 
from which alone the dwellers on earth receive what- 
ever power they have to read the riddle of the world 
or choose their own steps aright ; one to whom the 
Christian society is almost as a watchword, and who 
hears in every social distress of the times a cry for the 
help which only a social interpretation of the Gospel 
can give ; such a one assuredly will not fail to find 
channels by which these and other like " gifts " from 
the ascended Giver may flow forth for the common 
good. 

Under these auspices he goes forth to carry for- 
ward the enterprise which has dropped from the 
hands of the cherished friend, united with him as in 
a common work and purpose so as the object of 

16-5 



250 SERMON IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

reverent love and trustful hope. There must be many 
present here to-day whose recollections of the twin 
day eleven years ago are full of the echoes of some of 
the words then spoken from this pulpit. What other 
last words could speak to us now with so grateful a 
sacredness ? 

The pilgrims' psalm which was then made to 
guide our thoughts " brings before us," we heard, " the 
grace and the glory of sacrifice, of service, of progress, 
where God alone, the Lord of Hosts, is the source and 

the strength and the end of effort The Lord God 

is a sun to illuminate and a shield to protect. In the 
pilgrimage of worship that which is personal becomes 
social. The trust of the believer passes into the trust 
of the Church. The expectation of one is fulfilled in 
the joy of all." " There must be in the outward life," 
we were finally reminded, "checks, lonelinesses, de- 
fects. We cannot always keep at the level of our 
loftiest thoughts. But for the soul which offers itself 
to God, which accepts — because it is His will — the 
burden of command, which claims — because it is His 
promise — the spirit of counsel and the spirit of pro- 
phecy, the words shall be fulfilled through the dis- 
cipline of disappointment and the joy of sacrifice, 
from strength to strength. 

" Lord God of Hosts, blessed is the mail that 
putteth his trust in Thee!'* 

* From strength to strength: a Sermon preached ..at the consecra- 
tion of J. B. Lightfoot...by B. F. Westcott..., 1879 and 1890, pp. 3, 18. 



INDEX OF PASSAGES QUOTED. 



OLD TESTAMENT. 



PAGE 

Exodus xii 15 

6 5 

xv. 13, 16 14 

Leviticus iv. 13 6 

xxvi. 11 f 164 

Numbers x 6 

xii- 7 173 

xiv. 5 5 

xvi. 3 6 

Deuteronomy xxii. 24 131 

xxxii. 5 43 

xxxiii. 12 114 

Judges xx. 2 5 

1 Kings vi. 1 i63f 

2 Chronicles v. 6 6 

Psalms ii. 2 150 

xxvii. 10 61 



PAGE 

Psalms lxviii. 18 157 

lxxiv. 2 13 ff, 107 

Proverbs v. 14 6 

Isaiah xlix. 1 165 

liv. 5 15° 

lxvi. 1 f 164 

Jeremiah ii. 2 150 

xxiv. 6 16 

xxvi. 17 5 

xxxiii. 7 16 

xlii. 10 16 

Ezekiel xvi. 60 150 

Amos ix. 11 11 

Ecclesiasticus xi. 12 159 

xxiv. 23 7 

li- 7 159 

Ps. Sal. x. 7f 7 



NEW TESTAMENT. 



Matthew 

ix. 35 27 

X. I 26f 

5 27, 35 

18 35 

2 3 35 

xi. 1 27 



Matthew 

xvi. 18 2, ioff, 108, no 

19 19 

xviii. 17 gf 

xix. 28 29 

xx. 17 27 f 

28 203 



252 



INDEX. 



Matthew page 

xxv. 32 61 

xxvi. 14 28 

20 27f 

26f 30 

47 28 

xxviii. 16 ..28 

i8ff 33f 

Mark 

i- 14—34 23 

39 23 

iii. 13 — 16 22 

vi. 7 23 

i2f 23 

30 .....2 4 f 

ix. 35 24 

x. 32 24 

45 203 

xi. 11 24 

xiii. 9 35 

xiv. 7 24 

10 24 

20 24 

22 30 

43 24 

[xvi. i5ff] 36 

Luke 

iv. 20 210 

vi. I2ff 24f 

i7 f 25 

ix. 1 25 

6 25 

10 25 

12 25 

14 25 

16, 18 25 

xii. 37 203 

xvii. 5 26 

xviii. 31 26 



Luke page 

xxi. 12 36 

xxii. 14 26 

[19] 30 

i6i 203 

30 29 

47 26 

xxiv. 9 26 

10 26 

33 26 

33ff 33 

45ff 36f 

49 39 

John 

ii. 19ft" 163 

vi. 59 118 

67, 70 28 

71 28 

xiii. — xvii 223 

xiii. iff 31 

16 28 

34 3i 

xiv. 26 166 

xv. 1 ff 31 

26f 166 

xvi. 7 fF 31 

i3ff 166 

xvii. 2of 3if 

xviii. 20 118 

xx. 19—23 32 

24 28 

xxi. 16 101 

Acts 

i. if 26 

2 39 

3 39 

4* 39 

8 37 

10.. 179 



INDEX. 



253 



ActS PAGE 

i. i3 f 42 

15 - 43 

17 38> 204 

2if 38 

25 204 

26 34 

» 43 f 

14 34 

3 2 39 

42 43 ff 

43 ff 45> 47 

iii- J 5 39 

iv. 27 36 

33 39>4<5 

v. 1 — 11 48f 

11 53 

isff 49f 

13 52 

3 2 39 

vi ...5off 

if 206 

2 34 

3 — 6 100 

3 189 

4 43> 46 

6 206, 216 

7 52 

viii. 1 53 

3 53 

I4 ff ■ 54 f 

27 T 79 

ix. iof 182 

12 215 

13 56 

i7f 55 

17 182, 215 

27 48 

31 55> 104 



ActS PAGE 

ix. 32 56 

41 57 

x. 5 182 f 

17 179 

39 ff 39 

44 ff 54 

45 57 

xi. iff 57 

3 74 

18 58 

20 61 

22 ff 48, 60 

22 90 

26 91 

27 63 f 

29 91, 206 

30 61 

xii. 1 — 19 6if 

7 179 

17 62, 76, 87 

25 206 

xiii. iff 63 

1 9 1 

3 183, 216 

4 64 

5 182 

3i 39 

46 66, 80 

xiv. 23 65 f, 103, 215 

26 66 

27 64, 91 

28 91 

xv. 67 ff 

1 67, 9 1 

3* 69 

5 69 

6 69 f 

7 80 



254 



INDEX. 



ActS PAGE 
XV. 12 70 

*3f 80 

*4 13 

16 11 

19 8o, 82 

22 ,....70, 82 

*3 ff 7!f 

24 , 68 

^5 82 

28f 81 

3°^ 7^f 

30 91 

32 9 1 

33 9 1 

36 92 

xvi. 1 — 4 I78f 

1 183 

4 81 ff, 93, 113 

5 94 

6 95 

15 80 

34 173 

xvii. 24 164 

xviii. 10 13 

22 96 

xix. 6f 54 

9 96 

21 ■ 97 

22 205 

32 97 

39 97 

41 97 

xx. 17 97 f 

24 *°3> 204 

28 13, 98 f, 102, 190 

3 l loi 

32 66, io3f 

35 126, 159 



ActS PAGE 

xxi. i7f 105 

19 *....204 

20 105 

25 82, 93, io5f 

xxii. 27f 143 

xxiii. 1 137 

xxvi. 8 80 

18 104 

xxviii. 8 215 

14 ...106 

17 106 

James 

ii. 2 ff 221 

v. 14 116, 215, 221 

1 Peter 

i. 1 f 114 

ii. 4 221 f 

9 f .13 

IO 22lf 

25 99» x 9i 

iv. 9 122, 155, 192, 222 

10 153 

iof 204 

x 7 173 

v. 1 — 5 222 

1 Jolm 

i- 1 39 

3 Jolm 

5 — 8 122 

6 118 

gf 116 

Jude 

1 114 

Romans 

i. 5 !56 

6 no 

7 "4* 

8 121 



INDEX. 



255 



Romans page 

i- nf 133 

11 i55 

v - 15 153 

vi. 23 153 

vii. 4 in, 150 

ix. — xi 142 

ix. 3 in 

5 • "I 

25 13 

xi- 13 ^04 

15 134 

28 114 

29 154 

xii., xiii 134 

xii. 3—5 146 

3 156 

6—8 153 

6 156 

7 2 °4 

8 126, 207 

13 122 > *9 2 

xiii. 4 204 

xiv 134 

i» 3 134 

18 in 

xv., xvi 134 

xv. 3 Ill 

7 in, 134 

15 156 

24 122 

25 206 

31 206 

32 133 

xvi. if 122, 207 

1 H5 f 

2 126 

3 f 2 °7 

4 ii5» ii7» 122 



Romans page 

xvi. 5 118 

16.. no, 117, 122 

17— 2 ° J22 > 134 

23 116 

1 Corinthians 

i. 2 103, 108, no, 113, 

ii5f, 119 

4—6 156 

4—9 X2 9 

9 tr 9 f 

10 — 17 I29f 

ii. 2 f 139 

iii. 5—15 160 

10 156 

n 167 

15 204 

i6f 130, 164 

iv. 6 125, 130 

14 — 17 116 

17 116 

v i3of 

18 131 

vi 131 

4 116 

vii- 7 154 

17 117, 121 

40 99 

viii 131 

n 65 

ix. — xi 131 f 

x. 134 

16, 21 131 

32 103, 108, 117 

xi. 3 150 

16 108, 117, 120 

17—34 13 1 

18 118 

22 103, 108, 117 



256 



INDEX. 



1 Corinthians page 

xi. 24 f 30 

xii 132 

4— 11 153 

5 204 

8—10 159 

12—27 J 45 f 

18 157 

28 117, 157 

28—31 153 

xiii 132 

xiv 132 

4f 116 

12 116 

19 ...118 

23 116 

28 118 

33 "7. I2 ° 

34 -118 

36 120 

xv. 7 76 f 

9 116 

xvi. 1 H5f, 121 

6 122 

15 159, 206 f 

19 H5f, 118, 122 

i9f no 

2 Corinthians 

i. 1 ...103, 108, 113, 115 f 

11 154 

16 122 

ii. 5 ff I3 1 

6"f 215 

iii. 2 121 

iv. 1 204 

v. 18 204 

vi. 3f 204 

16 164 

viii. 1 ii5f 



2 Corinthians page 

viii. 4 206 

18 117 

19 n7> 215 

23 117 

24 117 

ix. 1 206 

12 f 206 

13 x 32 

xi. 2 150 

8 117 

i3f in 

22f Ill 

28 117 

xii. 13 117 

19 — xiii. 13 132 

xiii. 14 132 

Galatians 

i. 2 113, 115, 116 

13 Il6 

15 156, 165 

19 ■ 77 

22 109, 115, 116 

ii. 2 69 

6 84 f 

7 — 12 85 f 

9 15^ U9 

i3 ff 74 

vi. 10 173 

Ephesians 

i. 1 no, 114, 115 

10 147 

18 104 

22 117 

22 f 147 

ii- 3 H9 

11 — 22 141 

13—18 149 

19 x 73 



INDEX. 



257 



Ephesians page 

ii. 20 165 

2if 164 

iii. 2, 7. 8 156 

5 f l( >5> 167 

6ff 166 

10 117, 142 

20f I42 

21 117 

iv. 7—12 ...153, i57 f > 161 f 

11 166 

12 204 

25 ff 162 

v. 22—33 J 5off 

n$ "7 

27 117 

29 117 

3* 117 

vi. 21 205 

Philippians 

i. 1 ...no, ii4f, 126, 136, 
211 ff 

5—7 136 

12 — 20 136 

*5* 136 

2 7 137 

ii- 1— 11 137 

17—3° r 3<> 

25 65 

iii. 6 116 

20 137 

iv. 3, 10 136 

14—19 136 

15 116 

22 122 

Colossians 

i. 2 no, ii4f 

4 121 

12 104 



Colossians page 

i. 17 H7 

18 117, H7f 

20 147, 149 

23 204 

24 "7> 149 

25 204 

iii. 15 161 

iv. 7 205 

15 n8 

16 115 fi 122 

17 205 

1 Thessalonians 

i. 1 109, 112, 114, 116 

4 123 

7f 121 

ii- 8 155 

14 108 f, 115 f 

15 f 109, 220 

iii. 12 124 

iv. 9 124 

gf 121, 124 

v. 11— 15 125 ff 

23 128 

2 Tnessalonians 

i. 1 109, 112, 114, 116 

3f 121 

4 108, 117 

iii. 6 — 16 i24f 

n 126 

Hebrews 

iii- 5f 173 

w — !73 

iv. 9 13 

vi. 10 208 

viii. 10 , 13 

i x - H 173 

x. 21 173 

xii. 22 173 



258 



INDEX. 



Hebrews page 

xiii. 2 122, 192 

12 13 

17 222 

1 Timothy 

i. 5 201 

18 181 ff 

19 201 

ii. 1 — 4 2i8ff 

i". 1— 13 J 93 ff 

5 io 3> - r °S. 116, 173 

7— !3 !9 8f 

9 201 

13 202 

i4f i72ff 

14 *77 

15 108, 116 

iv. 10 174 

14 i8 4 ff 

v. 1 196 

3 — 16 2l6f 

16 116 

i7ff r 93 f > 196 

19 J 97 

22 2l4f 

vi. 4 220 

2 Timothy 

i. 6 186 f 



2 Timotliy page 

i. 18 205 

iv. 5 158, 204f 

9 178 

10 176 

11 205 

12 178 

Titus 

i- 4 175 

5—9 190 ff, 194 

ii- 14 13 

Philemon 138 

2 118 

x 3 205 

Apocalypse 

i. 4 ...nsf 

6 222 

11, 20 116 

ii. 1, 8, 12, 18 ii5f 

7> «i i7i 2 9 IZ 7 

23 117 

iii. i, 7» 14 XI 5 f 

6, 13. 22 117 

v. 10 222 

vii 223 

xxi 223 

xxii. 16 117 



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